Whatever you do, don't let go
by LittleFairy78
Summary: Losing somebody you love is the hardest thing to go through. Sam knows from personal experience. There is only thing that could possibly make it worse: a light at the end of the tunnel that could be either hope or hellfire. Post season 3 finale.
1. Prologue: Behind the Veil

**Whatever you do, don't let go**

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural, or any of its characters. Wishful thinking is all I got, but of that I have plenty. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made with this story.

Rating: T. Some bad language, some blood, some dark thoughts. Nothing excessive, certainly not more than on the show.

Summary: Losing somebody you love is the hardest thing to go through. Sam knows from personal experience. There is only thing that could possibly make this worse: a light at the end of the tunnel, but you don't know if it's hope or hellfire. Post season 3, my take on what could possibly happen after the season finale.

Spoilers: Everything up to "No Rest for the Wicked" is fair game. This story starts right where the season finale left off. Well, a few hours later.

Author's Note: Just a short one, then I leave you in peace to read the story. This is my first Supernatural multi-chapter story. It's fully planned out already, so I know where it's going and what's going to happen. Updates should be once a week, depending on how real life is treating me. Reviews are always appreciated, as is constructive criticism.

Enjoy!

**Prologue: ****Behind the Veil**

Pain.

Darkness.

Pain and darkness.

Darkness and pain.

Both so overwhelming that they were pulsing around him and in him and through him and out of him.

Pain…pain…pain…like a drum solo of agony it throbbed around him, flowed through his veins instead of blood and set every nerve in his body on fire.

There was no space or time, just an all-encompassing nothingness in which he was strung up, body stretched to its limits, stretched to taut by an unseeing force that it would rip him apart if just another pound of pressure was added.

He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't see.

He couldn't feel anything but the pain.

It was latching onto him from all sides, tearing, clawing, cutting, biting, hurting, ripping, but not breaking. Not breaking him. Not breaking him _enough_. He wished that it would all be over, that he'd reach that point where it would break him, when the pain would become too much, the moment when his mind blanked out and sent him into sweet oblivion. But the moment didn't come.

There was no relief, no oblivion, no way of stopping the agony.

There was only pain and the roaring of the darkness around him. It was so loud, bellowing in his head with enough force to make him hope for his eardrums to burst, anything to make it stop…

_J__ust make it stop…please make it stop…MAKE IT STOP I BEG YOU!_

It was too loud to think, he was in too much pain to think, all he could do was scream soundlessly against the roaring darkness, hoping and praying to a higher power he had never believed in to make it _STOP_.

There had to be some way to make it end. Some way to get out of this.

Some way to make it stop.

But he was helpless. Powerless. Lost in the darkness, in a black hole of pain and suffering, and he couldn't make it stop. He was too weak to make it stop on his own, and he knew that nobody would come to help him.

He was alone.

All his life he had been alone.

Alone in the darkness, alone with his pain.

There was only one person who had ever cared.

Only one person he could think of to come and save him from this.

Only one person who might be strong enough to make the pain stop.

Cracked and bleeding lips opened in a silent scream, coppery blood mixing with saliva and causing the bile to rise in his throat that was raw from screaming in pain. Maybe there was enough strength left to scream one more word before his vocal chords gave up from abuse, before it all became too much and the pain and the darkness would tear him apart into a thousand pieces that would never stop hurting.

He closed his eyes and screamed the one word that was echoing in his head again and again and again, bouncing from one side of his skull to the other and back again in a substitute for a heartbeat.

The one word that was his beacon against the darkness.

The one word that meant hope for him.

The one word that hurt him more than anything else.

He screamed with all his might, with all the power he had left in his lungs, and the word echoed faintly through the roaring darkness before its echo was swallowed into absolute silence.

_"SAM!"_

* * *

Prologues are short ;-) The next chapter will be much longer, I promise. And it should be up soon.


	2. A Night in Darkness

So here is the promised first chapter, and as promised it's longer.

The spoiler warning from the prologue applies for the whole story, of course. Specific spoilers in this chapter for "No Rest for the Wicked", "A Supernatural Christmas" and the Pilot.

All the weapons information (okay, the little there is in this chapter) comes from a great website called The Weapons Box: Supernatural - the Weapons of Sam and Dean Winchester. I merely looked it up there, and I'm eternally thankful to the site for providing it. Check it out, it's a great site.

Thanks to Isis-SG1 for reading this through for me and correcting my mistakes.

* * *

**Chapter 1**** – A Night in Darkness**

There was a smear of dried blood just above Dean's left eyebrow.

Sam had been staring at it for hours, sitting in the backseat of the Impala, with Dean's head pillowed in his lap. Bobby had been driving, but Sam had not looked up once. He hadn't even asked where Bobby was taking them. There hadn't been any room in his mind for asking questions. Sam was at the end of his rope, and the only thing he could still bring up the strength to do was to clutch Dean's body in his arms.

He didn't let go just once. Not for a single moment after he gathered Dean's lifeless body up in his arms did he let go. He hadn't looked up when Bobby had come hurrying into the room where Dean had died, his heavy tread stopping mid-step and a gasp escaping his lips. Sam hadn't moved, hadn't looked away. And when after a long moment of shocked silence Bobby had told him that they had to leave Sam had wordlessly lifted Dean up and had carried him to the car.

Lilith had fled, and the other demons had gone. But Sam didn't care. Sam didn't care about what had happened after Lilith had released the hellhound. He didn't care whether Lilith had truly intended to kill him that moment, and neither did he care why she had been unable to go through with it.

It didn't matter anymore.

Nothing mattered but getting away from that place.

They had come in two cars, but they drove away in the Impala, leaving Bobby's car behind. Sam hadn't even noticed. He had sat in the backseat for the hour-long drive, staring down at his brother's face and mapping the drops and smears of blood on Dean's pale skin. When the car had finally stopped and the Impala's engine had fallen silent, Sam had carried Dean into the house, following Bobby up the stairs and into a bedroom.

He hadn't even looked up to see where they were, somehow knowing instinctively more than noticing that it was Bobby's house they were at again. It was as good as any other place, and Sam didn't care where they went to. It didn't matter. Now that they had lost the race against time, nothing mattered anymore.

Dean was dead.

And there was a smear of blood above Dean's left eyebrow that Sam had been staring at for hours now. He had rubbed at it in the car, had tried to wipe the blood from his brother's pale and cooling skin, but the smudge had stayed right where it was. A drop of blood that had gotten smeared, and now it looked strangely like a pear. Maybe that was why Sam couldn't stop staring at it. There were other drops and smears of blood on Dean's face and neck, and his chest and everything below was a mass of red blood and shredded flesh and fabric. There was blood all over Dean's body, a Rorschach test made of the life that had drained from his body. It was gruesome, but somehow Sam hadn't been able to tear his eyes away from it.

With Dean's head still resting on his thighs, Sam turned to the side and reached for the washcloth in the bowl of water sitting beside the bed. Warm water. He had made Bobby take the first bowl of water he had brought away again because it had been cold. Bobby had looked as if he didn't understand why it should matter whether or not the water was warm or cold.

But it made a difference, all the difference in the world, whether or not Bobby could see that.

Sam squeezed the excess water out of the washcloth and began to gently wipe at the smear of blood above Dean's left eyebrow. When he first brought the cloth down, he half-expected Dean to open his eyes and crack a stupid joke about the awkwardness of their position. But Dean's eyes stayed closed, as Sam wiped at the blood above his eyebrow.

Dean's eyes stayed closed because Sam had closed them gently earlier, had closed them because he wasn't able to look into his brother's broken hazel eyes anymore. His dead eyes.

Dean's eyes weren't ever going to open again.

The blood had dried hours ago, but as Sam ran the washcloth over the smear a few times the blood began to dissolve slowly, leaving only pale skin behind. Sam rinsed the washcloth and started wiping at the next spot of blood, on Dean's cheek. Slowly and methodically, Sam wiped away all the random spots and smears of blood on his brother's face and neck and cleaned out the wounds. There was a deep gash on the side of Dean's head that needed stitches. And there were worse wounds on his chest and sides, still partially hidden underneath the torn remains of Dean's shirt. Those were going to need stitches, too.

There was a pair of scissors in the drawer of the cabinet beside the bed, old and the blades not too sharp, but they served to cut off the remains of Dean's shirt. After long hours of being in the same position, Sam now had no other choice left but to finally take Dean's head from his lap and lay it on the pillow while he shifted to the edge of the mattress to have easier access to the wounds on Dean's body.

The hellhounds had done a lot of damage.

Worst were the deep gashes on Dean's chest and sides, the marks the hounds had left so deep that in places the bones of Dean's ribs shone through. Those were the wounds that had caused the high blood loss. Sam closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose as he fought the images down that were rising unbidden inside of him. But he couldn't stop it. The back of his eyelids were the screens, and he was mentally tied in his chair with his eyes open to see that horrible slideshow of the moment when the hellhound's claws had torn into his brother's chest, when all Sam had seen was blood gushing up from the wounds and Dean's face – scared, so scared. For the first time that Sam could remember Dean had looked absolutely terrified. Sam had seen nothing, hadn't been able to make out the hellhound. But Dean had seen it, and during the last moments of his life Sam's larger-than-life, invincible and ever so strong brother had been terrified as the creature had ripped him apart.

There were wounds on Dean's left leg as well, not as bad as the ones on his chest but still bad enough to require stitches.

Getting the torn pair of jeans off his brother's body was more difficult than getting the shirt off. The scissors were too blunt to cut through the thicker fabric, so Sam had to resort to pulling and tugging the clothing off. The jeans was stuck to the dried blood in many places, and Sam had to bite his lips as he pulled it off, hoping against hope that he wasn't going to tear skin and flesh off along with the fabric.

Once the jeans and the shirt were both lying in front of the bed in a shredded mass of torn fabric and blood, Sam once more settled into the numb rhythm of rinsing the washcloth and wiping away the blood, slowly and methodically. The water in the bowl turned pink and then red, but for as long as it was still fresh enough to clear away the blood Sam wasn't going to call Bobby again. He needed to be alone now.

Sam didn't know for how long he sat there, again and again rinsing the washcloth to swipe it over his brother's skin. It could have been an hour or it could have been five. Sam didn't know, and neither did he care. He was doing what needed to be done. Time didn't matter.

Finally Sam thought he had washed off all the blood. Dean was still lying there, eyes closed, face directed unseeing up at the ceiling, arms lying loosely by his sides. Chest so still, not moving up and down in time with Dean's breathing. Sam stared at his brother's chest for long minutes, hoping against hope that this was nothing but a giant cosmic misunderstanding and that the next second Dean's chest might rise again with an intake of breath. Maybe he was just missing the movement of Dean's chest because it was a torn mass of skin and blood. Sam knew that his hopes were in vain, but still he found that he was afraid to look away for just one second because he might miss the tiniest movement.

But of course Dean didn't move. His chest didn't rise just the fragment of an inch, and neither did he flinch or show any sign of life as Sam cleaned out the deep and ugly wounds.

Dean was dead.

He didn't feel any pain from this treatment. Nevertheless Sam treated his brother's wounds with utmost care, just as if Dean was able to feel what he was doing. When he was finally done he put the washcloth back into the bowl with bloody water.

He needed something to treat to Dean's wounds, he needed the medical kit and fresh clothing for his brother. Both of which were in the Impala's trunk. But Sam couldn't bring himself to get up and leave the room. It would only take a minute or two to get down and grab the stuff from the trunk. Two minutes. But he just couldn't bring himself to leave. He couldn't even bring himself to get up.

"Bobby!"

It was no loud yell, more of a hoarse call, but it must have been enough. A few seconds later there were steps on the stairs. Bobby appeared in the doorframe a moment later, his eyes immediately going over to Dean's body on the bed before they settled on Sam.

"You need anything?"

Sam nodded. "The medical kit from the trunk. And there's a duffle bag with clothes, I need that too."

Bobby looked Sam up and down, eyebrows pulled down in a frown. "The medical kit? Are you hurt?"

Sam shook his head and turned his eyes towards Dean's still form again. "No. It's for Dean."

He didn't turn towards Bobby again, but he clearly heard the older man's deep sigh. "Sam, do you really think that…"

"I'm not going to let my brother lie here with gaping wounds in his chest and leg Bobby!" Sam clenched his teeth so hard that he felt his jaw-muscles quiver. "So are you getting the stuff or do I need to go get it myself?"

Bobby sighed after a moment of silence. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Thanks."

Looking at Dean now that all the blood had been washed off, Sam couldn't understand where the cliché came from that dead people looked like they were sleeping. Dean didn't look like he was sleeping. The marks from the hellhounds aside, there were still too many obvious signs that Dean wasn't just sleeping. First of all Dean nearly always slept on his stomach, with a hand close to his pillow, near the knife he kept there. But even that wasn't the most striking difference. Dean's face always wore an expression, even in sleep. A frown, a slight smile, a relaxed look, a pensive look, something. But now Dean's face was merely slack, completely expressionless. And his skin looked pale, the shadows under his eyes in sharp contrast to his waxen pallor. The freckles which normally blended into his skin so that they were only visible from up close stood out prominently now, spots on his face that somehow made him look less like the Dean Sam knew.

Dean looked nothing like he was sleeping.

Which made it even harder because Sam couldn't even pretend for just one moment that all this wasn't true. Every single glance at his brother drove the message that Dean was dead home with an even sharper stab of pain.

Sam turned his eyes away from Dean when there were steps on the stairs again. Bobby came into the room with the duffle bag from the trunk slung over one shoulder and the medical kit in his hands. He put the kit down beside the bed and placed the duffle on the floor by the foot end.

"Thanks." Sam croaked out.

Bobby nodded. "Is there anything else you need?"

Sam shook his head. "No, thanks."

"I'm going to make some food. You haven't eaten in over a day, you need something to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"Sam."

"I'm not hungry, Bobby." Sam didn't want to yell, but he felt his control slipping and only hoped that Bobby wasn't about to take that argument any further. He was too tired for this now. He didn't have the strength to fight. But he would fight Bobby on this if he had to.

Bobby watched him silently for a moment, then he turned around with a nod. "I'll be downstairs if you need anything."

Sam nodded and reached for the medical kit. He and Dean always kept it well stocked with bandages, butterfly tapes and everything you needed to stitch up a wound. Hunting was a dangerous business, one in which cuts, scrapes and other injuries were nothing unusual. Their Dad had not only taught them about hunting, or about the creatures they were after. He had also taught them how to treat injuries. Hospitals weren't always an option, not when all the insurance you had was a scam and only to be used in the worst case, when a trip to the emergency room was unavoidable. Besides, doctors tended to get all worked up about bullet wounds, and there were some marks that weren't easily explained without ending up in a straightjacket.

And if hospitals weren't always an option, you had to know how to treat those injuries which you couldn't go to a doctor for.

The Winchesters knew how to deal with a lot of injuries on their own. Sam had stitched up his first flesh wound at the age of nine, under the watchful eyes of his father. Dean still had the slightly crooked scar from that procedure on his left ring finger. From where he was sitting Sam could clearly see it, white against that pale, waxen skin. Over the years of hunting Sam had treated a variety of injuries, he had stitched up wounds, dressed them, he had removed the odd bullet here and there, had straightened bones and placed splints.

He and Dean had never been great on asking each other for help. Not the emotional kind of help, anyway. But it had always been a firm and unspoken rule in the Winchester household that if you weren't able to treat to a wound on your own, you damn well better asked whoever was there with you for help. On a hunt you couldn't afford being weakened by an untreated injury. Demons and ghosts didn't ask whether you were on top of your game. Injuries needed to be treated, and in most situations Sam had even trusted his brother far more to patch him up than some random doctor somewhere.

But all this didn't matter right now. This time, Dean wouldn't even feel it when Sam placed the stitches. Nevertheless Sam didn't act as if this situation was any different from all the previous times that he had stitched Dean up. He disinfected his hands, he carefully pulled out thread and needle and started to place the stitches. Even stitches, just like their Dad had taught him. Stitches that would leave as minimal scarring as possible. Not that Dean needed to worry about scarring ever again, but doing this was actually a calming process to Sam.

It was weird and twisted that Sam had learned all this as a young child, that he had treated his brother's injuries for long enough and often enough to feel comfortable and not the least bit squeamish about doing it. But then again their life had never been normal. This perversion of a brotherly moment was only the logical continuation of the crazy and surreal thing that was Sam Winchester's life.

Average brothers might have moments of brotherly proximity and understanding going to a football game, watching a movie or going out for a beer. For Sam and Dean who had always only had each other in their dangerous lives it was this. Watching out for each other, making sure that the other was all right, making sure that the other healed.

Only this time Dean wouldn't heal again.

And neither would Sam.

Sam worked slowly and methodically, starting with the gash on Dean's head, then the deep one on Dean's chest, stitching them up one after another. Last he treated the deep wound on Dean's leg. He had nearly run out of thread by the time he placed the last stitch.

And maybe Bobby was right in his unspoken assessment. It made no sense to stitch up Dean's wounds. It wouldn't change a thing about the fact that Dean was dead, and stitched or not, the wounds wouldn't heal again. But Sam had needed to do this. It was what he had always done, and he couldn't just leave Dean like this just because he was dead. He couldn't.

Sam put the medical kit aside and picked up the duffle bag. He found a fresh pair of jeans and a shirt that was reasonably clean and proceeded to dress Dean in them. Getting the jeans on was even more of a struggle than getting the torn and bloody jeans off had been, but after a few minutes of pulling and pushing Sam had managed to dress his brother and shrugged Dean into the shirt.

This was better.

Not good, because Sam doubted that anything could ever be good again, but a little better. Dean was wearing clean clothes, all the blood had been washed off and the fatal injuries weren't immediately visible anymore.

Dean still didn't look as if he was sleeping. But at least he didn't look as if he had just recently been mauled by a hellhound anymore. He looked more like Dean now. Of course the essence, the important things that made him _Dean_ were gone, but he looked at least a little more like Sam's brother again.

Still sitting on the edge of the mattress, Sam sat up straight and ran his hands over his face.

In a last desperate effort to occupy his thoughts with something, he gathered up Dean's bloody and torn clothes and deposited them by the door, ready to throw them out. He frowned when his hands encountered something heavy, and as his fingers grabbed through the shredded fabric they suddenly held his brother's gun in his hand. The .45 Colt 1911 with the engravings and ivory handle. Dean's favourite gun, the one he had nearly always carried with him. He had died with the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Not that it would have helped him any against the hellhound.

Sam dropped the clothes by the door and carefully put the gun down on the cabinet by the bed. Dean had always only ever felt safe with a weapon within easy reach. And it wasn't as if Sam was ever going to be able to use that particular gun again. Not Dean's gun. It was his, and it was his to keep even now.

Sam sank down on the mattress again with a sigh.

He had done all he could. Now there was nothing left to do, nothing Sam could occupy his hands and mind with so that his thoughts wouldn't drift off.

He couldn't allow his thoughts to drift off. He needed to occupy himself with doing what he could for Dean's body so that he wouldn't start thinking about what had happened to his brother's soul. Whatever Sam was going through right now, no matter that the pain inside of him was so bad that it felt like it was tearing him apart, Dean was in hell now. In _hell_. Whatever Sam was going through, what Dean had to be experiencing right now had to be so much worse. And that knowledge was tearing Sam apart.

"God Dean," Sam whispered as he leaned his head in his hands, swallowing reflexively but completely in vain against the big lump in his throat that felt as if it would never allow him to breathe easily again.

"If this is what you felt like a year ago, I know why you made that deal. I'd do it in a heartbeat if there was any chance of bringing you back with it."

Sam bit his lip, eyes staring at the wall as his vision suddenly started blurring. For a whole year, ever since he had gotten to know about the deal his brother had made with the crossroad demon, he hadn't understood. He hadn't understood why Dean had done it, how he could have possibly been so selfish to decide that he'd rather die and have Sam live than go on without Sam. In fact, for most of the twelve months Sam had been angry at Dean for making this decision because it forced Sam to live his life without Dean. It forced Sam into the position Dean hadn't been able to endure himself.

But now he understood why Dean had done it. He would do the same.

He'd rather sell his own soul than live this nightmare that his life had turned into.

Sam blinked hard a few times before he looked back into his brother's face.

"I think I understand now why you did it. Not that it helps any, but I think I understand why you did what you did. But that doesn't mean that it's fair. It's unfair that you got to decide whether I get to live or not, and it's unfair that I have to live with that choice."

Sam drew a shuddering breath. What was really unfair was that there had been so many things left unsaid. One year simply hadn't been enough to say all that he had wanted to say. Because saying those things would have meant that Sam had given up, that he had accepted that Dean was going to die. But Sam had refused to accept his brother's fate until a few hours ago. Until Lilith had let that hellhound loose on Dean. And so many things had been left unsaid because of this refusal.

Sam was sure that the important things had been said. Or conveyed in another way, because there was no way in he…there was no way that Dean would have let Sam say them out loud.

No chick-flick moments. Up until the very end.

But Sam was sure that his brother had known the important things, at least that was the thought that had carried him through the last couple of days. The problem was that right now, sitting here and staring at Dean's dead body, all those small things that had gone unsaid suddenly seemed so much more important.

Sam shook his head with a smile that was more of a grimace. It all flooded up inside of him, unbidden, his insides a boiling, swirling mass of emotions, most of which Sam was unable to even name. He drew a breath with every intention of simply releasing it. But suddenly the words just started flowing out, right from that raw, aching hole inside of him that had opened up some eternally long hours ago. The words didn't come from his brain, they came straight from the place in his gut where the pain was so bad that it was blinding.

"You know Dean, growing up the way we did…I hated it. Not back then while we were growing up, I didn't know anything else, but later. When I came to Stanford, I had the feeling that I was normal for the first time. I had friends. Real friends, not just playmates who'd be gone the next time we had to move. And suddenly I knew all those people who had everything I never had – a family who called them regularly, who send them packages and wrote letters. My friends had pictures from Christmases on their bookshelves, extended families, friends, everything. They had stories to tell and I…I had nothing. I couldn't even tell them who I was, what my life had been like, not without lying. I had to reinvent myself. I mean, they all liked me, and I really made some good friends. But I had to keep them at arm's length the entire time because I just couldn't tell them who I was. They wouldn't have understood."

Sam shook his head as if to ward off the unpleasant thoughts going through his head. Not that it helped him any.

"And Jess. I really loved her, you know? No matter that we were still young, I knew that she was the one. She never once questioned me. I mean, I knew that she was curious about my family, that she wanted to know more. She had introduced me to her folks, but still she accepted that I couldn't do the same for her. She just took me the way that I was, with all the secrets that she knew were there. And I…Yellow Eye was right with what he said. I was looking for rings for a while before she was killed. Had all this not happened, I would have asked her to marry me. And I know that she would have said yes, despite all the secrets. And I like to think that we'd have been happy that way."

Sam swallowed hard against the emotions bubbling to the surface inside of him. It had been two years ago now, but Jess' death was still a raw wound that broke open every time he thought of her. Strangely, tonight was the first time that thinking about her didn't add to Sam's pain. He was in the worst possible kind of pain already, there was nothing worse than losing his brother. Nothing that could make the agony of that even worse.

"I never told you, I denied it, but for a while I blamed you. I mean, I know better now. I know that Yellow Eye killed Jess because of what she was to me, that he would have killed her that night whether or not you had shown up in my life again. But for a while I placed the blame on you. Why did you have to come back into my life, why did you have to bring all my walls crashing down like that? I swear, when you stood in my living room and Jess came in…it was what I had always tried to prevent from happening. There was this old me, the kid who had been raised as a hunter, and the new me that I had invented when I went to Stanford. And I didn't want those two worlds to mix. I thought I was happy in my new life, that I didn't need the old one. And then you had to take me on this hunt for Dad."

Another deep breath. Somehow, breathing had become a conscious effort, and it was getting harder and harder to draw each breath without it turning into a sob.

"It was so easy to fall back into this old life. Scarily easy. Dad had all those lessons ingrained in us so deeply, I could have never forgotten any of it. It was like riding a bicycle. It was what I had been afraid of, you know? Why I never called, and why I wouldn't have picked up the phone if you or Dad had called. Because I was scared that my old life was just that one phone call away. I…I missed you. Both of you. No small wonder, you were the only two people who had been in my life ever since I can remember. But I thought I needed to make that cut to find out who I was for myself. I didn't want to be something because my Dad taught me, or because my big brother thought it was what we were meant to do. I thought that if I was meant to be something else, something other than a hunter, I was the only one who could find out. And I needed to do so without Dad or you.

"And when you suddenly stood in front of me, it all came back, like I had never left. That's why I insisted on going back to Stanford as soon as we had dealt with the woman in white. I wanted to go back to my new life before the old one lured me back in. And if Yellow Eye hadn't killed Jess that night, I probably would have. I'd have gone to my interview the next day, I'd have asked Jess to marry me, I'd have gotten the full ride for Law School and that's where I'd be right now.

"And today I'm glad that I didn't. I mean, I still wish with all my heart that Jess hadn't died. If there's one thing I could change about all that happened, then it would be that. But I can't. Jess is dead, and I'd like to think that she'd have wanted me to be happy even with her gone. And…I mean it sounds strange, but if there's one good thing that came out of this whole thing then it's that I realized I wasn't happy at Stanford. Well, I _was_ happy, but I was never really me. That's what I mean. I wasn't fully happy. Not that doing what we do is my imagination of a happy life. Being on an endless road trip, chasing down evil, risking our life for people we don't even know. That's also not really my kind of happy. But it's what I knew. Driving around in the car with your stupid music on, staying in dingy Motels sharing a room with you. Working cases, doing research, keeping the equipment in working order. It's probably the weirdest life anybody can lead, but it felt like coming home. And I really liked that, I liked the feeling of coming home to something. We learned to be brothers again, and I realized that I hadn't been as lonely as I always thought I had been."

Sam bit his lip as he fell silent. This all came out wrong. It was as if there were no words to really transport the meaning of what he had in his head, of what he actually wanted to say. But it felt important that he said it, even though Dean wasn't even awake or alive to hear it. It felt like that huge lump in Sam's chest that would only dissolve and stop wearing him down if he finally said it.

"Even when I was at Stanford and pretended that you and Dad didn't exist, when I told my friends that I had no contact to my family because we weren't close, I always knew that you were there. I didn't need to have you around to know that you were all just a phone call away. That if it came to the crunch and I'd be in enough need to swallow my pride, you would be there. Without question. It was why I could get through the time at Stanford the way I did. Knowing that you were there, lurking in the background somewhere. That it was up to me to make the first step."

A chuckle escaped Sam's lips, despite the fact that he absolutely didn't feel like laughing.

"You know how much I looked up at you when we were kids? I mean with Dad always leaving and going on hunts, you were the one who were always around. I really thought that you knew everything."

Sam smiled at the memory.

"You were my big brother, of course I thought you knew everything. Whatever the question was, you answered me. And whatever you told me, I believed you blindly. I mean, it was Dad who taught me nearly everything about hunting, but it was you who raised me while he went out and killed all those things. You made dinner for me, you took care that I went to bed in the evening, and you were the one who answered my questions when Dad didn't want to or wasn't around to do it. You told me about hunting, about what happened to Mom, and all that other stuff that kids are supposed to hear from their parents. You told me that there's no Santa, you taught me how to defend myself against bullies, you helped me with my homework, showed me how to drive a car, and you were the one who was always around when I needed someone. I mean, you were the one who gave me the sex talk, for crying out loud." Despite himself Sam laughed at that particular memory. "Not that this isn't a moment I'd like to erase from my mind, but it's just so typical of how we grew up. Dad left all that to you. No small wonder that I thought you knew everything.

"I mean I loved Dad. I really did. Despite all the fighting and the times we butted heads. He dealt with his life in the only way he could, and I respect that. He just didn't know what else to do. And he loved us, and in his own way he always tried to let us know. It…I mean, it didn't always get across the way he meant it, but if you knew how to read him you could tell. If you wanted to read him, and I didn't always want to go the long way. And when he was gone, the only thing that kept me going was that you were still around. I mean, I know how hard his death hit you, and that you were barely hanging in there for a while, but somehow you still managed to make me believe that you knew what we had to do. You were torn apart by what Dad did, but still you slipped back into the role of my big brother and made me believe that everything was going to be all right. You always knew what we had to do."

There were tears running down Sam's face and he brought up a hand to wipe them away. He didn't know why he even bothered since nobody was around to see them anyway. And while it had not exactly made him feel comfortable, even Dean had never told Sam to suck the tears up. Not when it really counted. That had always been their father's words. But still, Sam found himself wiping at the moisture on his face.

"And now you're gone. You're gone and I just don't know what to do now. I'm alone, for the first time in my life I'm totally alone. And the thought scares the living daylight out of me. I can't do this Dean. I can't do this without you."

Sam looked at the lifeless hull that had once been his brother as if hoping that by some miracle Dean would let him know for the last time what he was supposed to do now, but there was nothing. Dean was still. Lifeless. Dead.

"I can't do this, Dean. I don't know what to do."

Sam's vision was blurry, the moisture from his eyes flowing over and running down his cheeks, but he no longer bothered to wipe his tears away. It wasn't as if it mattered. Nothing mattered anymore.

Dean was dead.

It felt as if the floor was being pulled out from under Sam's feet. All the safety nets he had ever known, that one refuge for his mind even in the darkest of times – the silent knowledge that even if everything else failed Dean would still be _there_, were gone now. That protective presence in his life, the sentinel in the doorway of his childhood bedroom that had guarded his sleep at night, the one person who meant the world to Sam, was gone.

And Sam felt the hole Dean had left in his soul with every heartbeat. There was a bond between brothers everywhere, and theirs had been strengthened through years with only each other for company, strengthened every time one of them had put his life in the other's hands, strengthened to the point that not even four years apart had been able to break it. And over the past three years Sam had felt that bond grow stronger yet again as he and Dean had picked up their old lives once more. He had felt it grow stronger with every danger they had survived, with every mile they had driven on the road, with every night that they had spent just a few feet apart from each other. Their lives had become interwoven to the point that Sam could no longer tell where one ended and the other began, and now Dean had been ripped apart from Sam, had been ripped right out of his soul and left a bleeding hole behind.

Dean was dead and his soul was in hell, and there was nothing in the world that Sam could do to change that anymore. He had had a year. Twelve months to come up with a way to save his brother. But he had failed.

He had let Dean down.

Dean had relied on him finding a way to save his soul, Sam knew. Dean had trusted him to figure out a way to get them both out of this alive. But for the first time in his life, his research had let Sam down. And Sam had let Dean down.

"I'm sorry." Sam choked out. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry that I didn't find a way out of this. I'm sorry that you had to close that damn deal in the first place. I'm sorry for so many things Dean, but it's too late now. It's not going to help you anymore whether I'm sorry or not. I just…I just want you back." It came out as a broken whisper, barely loud enough for Sam himself to hear. "I need you back, Dean. I can't do this without you."

But he had to. Deep inside Sam knew that he had to do this without Dean from now on, and that thought was so painful that it felt as if somebody was clenching his heart together in an icy iron grip. It was a pain beyond anything that Sam had ever felt before, a pain so bad that he didn't know how he'd be able to live with it, not for every single day of his life from now on.

It hurt to think.

It hurt to breathe.

It hurt to live.

And it would never stop hurting.

At that moment Sam understood that it would never stop hurting. Like it had never stopped hurting after Jess had died. Only this was so much worse.

And in the silence of the small cramped bedroom in Bobby's house, a silence that was only interrupted by his own sobbing breaths and Dean's stillness, Sam fell apart.

He no longer cared about the tears, or about dignity and male pride, he no longer cared about the sobs that were wrenching from deep in his chest. All he cared about was that he was hurting far more than one person was supposed to be hurting. He was in more pain than one person was supposed to endure, and he was alone with it now.

Alone.

He was sitting there, crying like a little girl, as if that could still change anything about what had happened. As if that could possibly take the pain away. Sam knew that Dean would probably laugh himself silly if he saw him now. Or he'd slap him over the head and tell him to get a damn grip on himself and stop behaving like a wuss.

Sam tried, but it took long minutes until he finally at least had his breathing back under control. He wiped his hand over his eyes and shook his head. This was going to get him nowhere. He could fall apart later, right now he had things to do. Now that Dean was taken care of, Sam had other things to do.

He had revenge to tend to.

Sam turned around at the sound of somebody clearing their throat behind him. He turned around to find Bobby lurking in the doorframe, looking insecurely at Sam as if he was worried that the younger man might either explode or fall apart at the slightest wrong word. But Sam only wondered for how long Bobby had been standing there.

"Bobby?"

"There's food downstairs."

"I'm not hungry Bobby."

The look of insecurity vanished from Bobby's face only to be replaced with one of determination. "You will listen to me right now Sam Winchester. I've been at this point with your brother exactly a year ago. Back then I walked away, but I won't make that mistake again. I won't watch you waste yourself. So there's food downstairs, and you're damn well going to eat it, even if that means I have to stuff it down your throat. Do you hear me?"

Sam was a little surprised at the outburst, but actually he felt a little relieved, too. He'd prefer for Bobby to just leave him alone, but it was a good feeling that the older man wasn't walking around him on eggshells. Sam sighed and nodded.

"I'll be down in a few minutes, all right?"

Bobby nodded and wordlessly vanished out the door. Sam turned back towards Dean's lifeless body.

There wasn't anything left to say really. Not that saying any of the things he had said earlier had made any difference other than getting them off his chest. But Sam knew that this was the moment of letting go of his brother.

Not the big, teary goodbye, but the simple fact of letting his brother go. Physically of course. He had clung to Dean ever since he had died in front of Sam's eyes. For hours. He hadn't once turned his back on his brother's body. Leaving this room now meant letting go.

But leaving the room also meant letting Dean go in so many other ways.

It meant accepting that Dean was dead.

There was no way around it, Sam knew that. And yet he had to fight the urge to delay leaving the room for just a few seconds longer, maybe a minute. Or another hour. It wouldn't help him, though.

With a sigh Sam cast a last glance at his brother. He was already about to get up from his perch on the edge of the mattress when his eyes fell on the pendant that hung on a leather band around his brother's neck. A small smile stole onto Sam's face as he took it in his hands and looked at it more closely.

The leather band that held it around Dean's neck had escaped the claws of the hellhound, though Sam could see smudges of blood on the dark leather. But the pendant as such was almost unbelievably clean, free of any trace of blood.

Dean had worn that pendant ever since the Christmas when Sam had given it to him. He had hardly ever taken it off, not even when Sam had been at Stanford. The night Dean had come to get him from there, it had sent a small jab of pain through Sam to see that his brother was still wearing the pendant, even after four years apart.

Not that the pendant was particularly precious as such. Sam didn't know much about its worth since he hadn't bought it himself, but Bobby wouldn't have given him something really precious. Bobby wouldn't have been able to afford something expensive. It had been more of a token, something Bobby had thought would be a good present for Sam to give to his father. That it had ended up with Dean instead of with Dad…well, that was the story of Sam's life. Dean had been there when his Dad hadn't been. Dean had taken care of him, had tried to make things as normal as possible for his little brother while his Dad hadn't given a damn about whether or not it was Christmas.

Dean had earned the present while his Dad hadn't.

For a while after that Christmas, both Sam and Dean had tried to find out the meaning behind the pendant, if there was one. Whenever their father had left them alone in a motel room once more with nothing to do, they had searched his books for amulets of horned bull's heads and their meaning. They had found a few similar ones, but none matching Dean's pendant completely. If there was a meaning behind it, which Sam doubted, then they hadn't found it. Sam had decided silently and for himself to see the pendant as some sort of good luck charm. Something to protect Dean.

And maybe that was what Bobby had wanted. Maybe Bobby had wanted Sam to put his own meaning behind the present. And even if their old family friend hadn't meant that, Sam still had done it.

Not that it had done Dean a lot of good. For a little more than fifteen years the pendant had protected Dean, but seemingly the luck and protection from the pendant had worn out, if it had ever existed anywhere but in Sam's mind.

But still the pendant was the only piece of jewellery Dean had always worn, ever since that day. A few years later he had added the ring on his right hand, but while Sam didn't know the whole story behind that one, he knew that the ring hadn't been a gift from somebody. As far as Sam knew, Dean had made the ring himself, probably by melting down a few silver bullets from their father's arsenal. He distinctly remembered one of the rare shouting matches that had gone down between Dean and their father about that, but for the life of him Sam couldn't remember the whole story.

And since he didn't know it, he was going to leave the ring with Dean.

His hands were shaking slightly as Sam stretched them out to reach for the leather string that held the pendant around Dean's neck. The knot in the leather was too tight to open it, so Sam slipped the pendant over Dean's head. Carefully, he pulled it away from his brother's chest and put it around his own neck.

He didn't know why he was doing it. He couldn't give a reason why. But somehow, it suddenly seemed important to Sam that he kept that pendant. That even if they were going to burn Dean's body at some point in the future, a small part of his brother was still with him.

Sam made sure that the knot in the leather was tight, then he settled the pendant of the horned bull's head against his chest underneath his shirt and got up from the bed. With a last look at Dean, Sam got up from the bed and turned around. He left the room without looking back.


	3. A Guest for Dinner

Thanks for all the feedback on the prologue and the first chapter. I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the start of this story, and reviews always make my day. This chapter gives a little more insight into where the story's going.

Thanks once more go out to Isis-SG1 for reading this through first and telling me what she thought about it. It's good to have the opinion of somebody who's been in the fandom for much longer than I have before I start posting.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 2 – A Guest for Dinner**

No takeout food on the kitchen table as Sam came down, though he had expected some. But Bobby wouldn't call in for takeout after what had happened, and now that he thought about it Bobby wouldn't have left him alone in the house without telling him, either. So he had settled on the second alternative that didn't involve cooking – TV dinners. Two sets of them were standing on the kitchen table along with two bottles of beer, and Bobby was already eating by the time Sam entered the room.

The older man looked up as Sam's steps sounded on the floorboard, chewing on a bite and washing it down with a swallow of beer. Wordlessly he gestured towards the second meal with his beer bottle and Sam slid into the seat.

He wasn't hungry.

Bobby wouldn't let that pass as an excuse to skip dinner, though, so Sam picked up the fork and stuck it into the food. Chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy. It wasn't home cooked food, but TV dinners were better than a lot of things he and Dean had eaten over the past years.

Dean.

A sting shot through Sam's chest at the thought of his brother and him on the road, scrounging meals from diners, fast food joints and mini-marts. Sting didn't do the feeling Sam felt justice, it felt more like his insides were wide open and raw, and somebody was randomly poking his most painful spots. That'd never happen again. Never. No more discussions about Chinese takeout vs. burgers, no more _don't forget the extra onions_. No more dinners together. Or lunches, or breakfasts. Never.

"That stuff is barely edible when it's warm. When it gets cold it becomes a health hazard, and it tastes like horseshit."

Sam looked up to find Bobby starting at him, his plate nearly cleared already. Sam's own plate was still untouched, and he thought that if he only ate one bite of the congealing mass on it he'd have to puke.

Sam sighed and put his fork down.

"I'm…"

"If you're about to tell me that you're not hungry, save your breath. This isn't about enjoying a nice dinner between old friends, this is about giving your body what it needs. Eat."

There was no room for discussion in Bobby's voice, so Sam took a careful fork of mashed potatoes and beans and stuck it in his mouth. It was nearly cold. Overcooked vegetables and sticky mashed potatoes, covered with nearly-solid gravy. It was disgusting. Even worse than those tacos he and Dean had eaten at that crappy place somewhere deep in backwater Kentucky, the ones that had made both of them regret that their motel room only had one bathroom.

Sam stopped chewing mid-bite, feeling the bile rise in his throat – and not from the memory of him and Dean on their knees in the crappy bathroom, locked in a battle of who could retch up the contents of his stomach faster and more violently.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't just sit here and eat dinner when every time his thoughts strayed just a little he started thinking of Dean. Of the times when Dean had still been alive. He couldn't stand that, couldn't stand the sharp darts of pain that flashed through him every time that happened.

He needed to do something. He needed something to occupy himself with. Something big that would leave him no time for other thoughts.

Bobby was watching Sam from narrowed eyes. "Sam…"

Sam shook his head. "I can't, Bobby. I know you mean well, but I can't eat anything right now."

He put his fork down and pushed the plate with food away from him. "I just can't."

Bobby looked ready to start a fight about the issue, but after a moment of staring into Sam's eyes he gave a resigned sigh. "I'm not going to let you get by with that excuse another time, kid. Just so you know."

Sam nodded and reached for the bottle of beer. The thought of simply drinking enough beer to make him forget was enticing. How easy would it be to drink bottle after bottle, until he was in that safe and wonderfully warm place where everything seemed fuzzy and nothing mattered. But he couldn't even do that.

Even if he got drunk now, he'd still have to wake up tomorrow morning. He'd still have to face the brutal truth of what had happened, and he couldn't possibly stay drunk forever just to forget. As easy as it sounded, he simply couldn't do it.

So Sam took a small sip of his beer, more to get the taste of food out of his mouth than for the sake of drinking. The sharp taste of the brew flooded his mouth and ran down his throat in a short moment of temporary bliss.

Bobby pushed his own plate towards the middle of the table and picked up his own bottle of beer. Peeling at the label and not meeting Sam's eyes, he started mumbling, his words quick as if he wanted to get them out as fast as possible.

"Now that you have patched Dean up, what are we going to do?"

Sam knew what Bobby meant. The older hunter wanted to know what Sam intended to do with Dean's body. And sooner or later he'd have to face that question. Though it only had one possible answer. Dean had been a hunter all his life, so Sam would treat his brother's body like a hunter would want it. He'd burn it. No burial, no tombstone, no chance of creating an angry spirit. Not that it would matter in Dean's case, but still. Ever since they had left Lawrence all those years ago, Dean had not known a real home. His life had been a constant road trip, uprooted and restless. Sam would not ground Dean in one place now just because he was dead.

But not now. Not yet.

He shook his head at Bobby. "Nothing. Not today."

Bobby nodded. "Okay."

Sam was a bit surprised at the easy way in which Bobby gave in, but he was too damn tired to contemplate this any further now. He wasn't able to form complex thoughts right now, and his pain was too raw and all-encompassing to let anything else get pushed in the foreground.

He was just so damn tired.

So weary.

All he wanted to do was lie down and close his eyes, but he already knew that even if he did so, sleep would evade him. How could he sleep when his whole world had come crashing down around him? How could he ever expect to sleep again without seeing the image of Dean being torn apart by invisible claws and teeth?

Sam didn't know what to do, but he also knew that if he didn't say anything soon, something that would convince Bobby that he wasn't about to fall apart, the older man would feel compelled to say something. Or even worse, to do something.

Sam took another small sip of his beer and looked up at Bobby. He drew a breath to say something, hoping that his brain would come up with anything to fill the silence as soon as he started to release the air from his lungs when suddenly the front door flew open with a resounding crash. Sam dropped his bottle of beer and spun around, his hand automatically going to the waistband of his jeans to close around his gun when he was thrown backwards from his chair. The air was pressed from his lungs as he fell to the ground and the gun slipped from his suddenly lax grip.

Struggling to draw breath into his lungs he could only watch as Bobby jumped up from his chair only to be thrown against the opposite wall as if pulled there by a giant magnet, hanging on the wall like a grotesque decoration.

Sam scrambled to his feet, desperately stretching out his hand to reach for the gun that was lying only a few feet away from him, his mind racing.

A gun would probably be useless. Where was Ruby's knife? Had he even thought about taking it with him? The last he remembered seeing it was when he had tried to stab Ruby…or Lilith, or rather that poor girl that had been possessed by both of them. He must have dropped it to the floor, and even if Bobby had thought of picking it up again, Sam had no idea where it was.

His fingers had nearly closed around the butt of his gun when the sleek black weapon suddenly skittered along the floor, sliding until it came to rest in the opposite corner. There was a loud cracking sound and pieces of plaster started to rain down on Sam from the ceiling. He didn't have to look up to know that the Devil's Trap had been cracked by some force stronger than the protection it provided. The lights started to flicker as steps approached Sam on the wooden floorboards. Boots were the first thing he saw. Brown suede boots with heels, clacking with every step on the wood. Sam slowly scrambled to his feet, looking at the woman standing in front of him.

A good looking woman, brown haired and in her mid-twenties, with a pretty freckled face and full lips. Only that the woman wasn't the one in control of the body. Milky white eyes glared at Sam for a full second before the woman thrust out her hand and Sam found himself tossed into the wall behind him with the same force that Bobby had been thrown around with earlier.

Sam couldn't move, barely had enough control over his muscles to keep breathing as Lilith stepped up towards him, the fury of hundreds of years in hell behind every step, every movement, every blink of lids over those milky eyes.

"Did you really think you'd get through with this?"

The woman's voice surely had been pleasant once, before Lilith had entered her body. But there was nothing pleasant about the harsh hissing sound of the words that she spat at him now.

Sam wanted to croak out an answer, wanted to ask the demon what this was all about, but suddenly an invisible, fleshless hand closed around his windpipe and squeezed, cutting off his air. Sam struggled, trying to bring up enough energy to do whatever it was that had held off Lilith from killing him earlier, but there was nothing he could do. Nothing but try to suck breath into his lungs without success as Lilith stepped even closer.

"Did you think I'd just let you and your brother cheat your way out of the contract and leave it at that? Didn't your brother tell you what would happen if you were stupid enough to try this?"

Sam's thoughts were racing as black spots started to dance at the edges of his vision. What was Lilith talking about? They hadn't tried to cheat their way out of the contract. Dean hadn't let him do anything like that for fear that Lilith would come after Sam. So what was Lilith talking about? Dean was dead, the hellhound had killed him. What could have possibly happened to enrage the demon like this?

"But maybe your dearest brother just didn't care. Is that it? Maybe Dean realized that he'd rather not give his soul for his freaky brother with the dark secret locked away inside of him. Maybe he found a way to weasel himself out of the deal and now he leaves you for the taking."

Sam shook his head. Or at least he tried to shake his head against the invisible force holding him in place.

Lilith made another furious gesture with her hand and Sam found the grip around his throat tighten.

"But let me tell you one thing, Sam. I will find him. I will find your brother and I will make him regret that he ever thought he could best me. I'm better at this game than he is. And once I've found him, he'll remember what the hellhound did to him as a pleasant evening encounter. I'm going to rip out his intestines one by one and I'll make sure that he stays alive for long enough to see me tear his beating heart right out of his chest. And then I'll drag his soul down to hell and make him suffer for all eternity. But for now, I'm going to make good on my promise. I'll make good on the deal I have with your brother and I will rip you apart, Sam Winchester. Piece by piece. Slowly."

The need for oxygen was overwhelming now, drowning out everything else. Just before Sam thought he was going to black out, the grip around his throat lessened and he was airborne again, flying all across the room and smashing into one of the massive stacks of books that were piled all over Bobby's house.

Corners of leather-bound books were poking painfully into Sam's body from all sides, bruising him. But Sam didn't even notice because he could breathe again, deep gulping breaths of sweet air even as the stack of books flew apart under the force of his impact and he fell to the floor in a gust of torn pages and dusty volumes.

The heeled boots were hurrying towards Sam again, and before he had enough oxygen in his system to even think about moving Lilith was there, right in front of him, and she reached out to drag Sam upright by the front of his shirt.

Sam prepared himself, tried to get his feet underneath himself to gain some leverage. With the return of breath into his lungs his hunter's instincts were kicking in again, shouting out ways to try and get out of this situation in the back of his head.

_Never give up, not while you're still breathing._

Ironically, of course it had to be Dean's voice Sam was hearing in his head as Lilith reached for his shirt, grabbed a fistful of fabric and…let go again with an inhuman scream.

Sam stared in bewilderment.

The demon actually stumbled backwards, taking hasty steps to avoid falling. Behind her, Bobby slid down the wall and landed on the floor with a grunt as Lilith's invisible hold on him loosened. But Lilith didn't even seem to notice. She was staring at Sam, her expressionless eyes wide with a mixture of fury and fear.

"You…you…"

Sam scooted a few feet back, at a total loss as to what all this was about. Lilith was still staring at him with wide eyes, but she wasn't staring at his face. She was staring at his chest, and as Sam tore his eyes away from the demon in front of him for a second and followed her gaze, his heart started beating fast in his chest.

At some point during the fight with Lilith, Dean's pendant had slid out from underneath Sam's shirt and was now hanging over his chest in plain sight. And Lilith was staring at it as if it had the power to freeze hell over and kill all demons inside.

Sam brought a hand up to cover the pendant, clinging to it as if it was a lifeline, and Lilith let out another unearthly screech.

"A soul catcher? You lying, cheating bastard think that you can weasel your way out of an ironclad deal with a soul catcher?"

Sam tightened his grip around the pendant without taking his eyes off of Lilith.

"What…"

"Shut up! Shut up! You can't do this Sam. You won't get through this. Dean's soul is mine, he sold it to me, and your little trinkets won't stop that."

Something about the pendant was stopping Lilith from getting closer to Sam, and as that realization sunk in he straightened up and scrambled to his feet again. Lilith was watching him from narrowed eyes, as if ready to jump should Sam decide to move towards her.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Dean is dead, he died because you let that hellhound loose on him. Nobody tried to get out of the deal!"

Lilith grimaced and backed away.

"You will regret this. I will make sure that you are going to regret this. Every demon who ever crawled out of hell is going to be after you from now on. You'll be dead before you know it, and you won't die easily."

And with a roar, the woman opened her mouth and a cloud of black smoke shot towards the ceiling. The lights flickered again as the black smoke raced across the ceiling before it vanished in an explosion of thunder. The woman who had been Lilith's human host swayed on her feet for a second, then she dropped to the floor in a boneless heap.

Sam was breathing hard, one hand against his sore and aching throat, and for a moment he just stood there, trying to understand what had happened over the past minutes.

What had Lilith been talking about? They hadn't tried to get out of the deal.

Well, they had tried, but they hadn't found a way to do so. They hadn't even found the slightest trace of a loophole that would allow both him and Dean to escape unscathed. And Dean was dead. Sam had sat with his dead brother for hours, Dean was definitely dead. So what had happened?

On the other side of the room Bobby scrambled to his feet and slowly and unsteadily moved over towards the young woman's body. Sinking to his knees beside her, he put a shaking hand against her throat. After a few seconds he looked up at Sam with a mute shake of his head.

The woman was dead.

"What happened?"

Sam was shocked at the croaking sound of his voice, and just those two words made him cough. Bobby got back to his feet and shook his head.

"I have no idea. What was she talking about? Did you do anything to get out of the deal?"

Sam swallowed painfully. "No. I mean, we tried. But you know all we did, and you know that nothing worked."

Bobby grimaced, as if he didn't like his next thought very much. "Maybe…I mean, maybe Dean did something we didn't know about."

But Sam only shook his head. "No. He'd have never done that."

Never in a million years would Dean have done something to get out of the deal, not if it endangered Sam's life. Sam would put his hand in the fire for that. Dean would have never done that.

Bobby had a pained expression on his face. "He was desperate, Sam."

"No!" Despite his sore throat Sam forced the word out with as much determination as he could muster. "No Bobby. Dean wouldn't have done that. He'd have never put my life on the line like that. He didn't allow me to do it, even when I wanted to. He'd not have done anything like that without telling me about it. He'd not have done it, period."

Bobby nodded, though a small line remained between his eyebrows, a tiny frown that didn't vanish.

"Well. Whatever happened, Lilith didn't seem too happy about it."

Sam nodded, a hand unconsciously massaging his throat. "But what happened? It sounded almost as if…"

Sam couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence. But Bobby had understood his drift.

"As if Dean's soul hadn't gone to hell, yeah. But how can that be?"

Sam shook his head. "I have no idea, Bobby. It can't be. Lilith thinks that we broke the deal. But why would she think that? She was there, she was the one who let that hellhound loose on Dean. She didn't seem to think anything was wrong then." He shook his head. "Bobby, she found us too fast. Much too fast."

"I guess it wasn't that big of a secret where we might go after what happened."

"Yeah, but she caught us with our pants down Bobby. We didn't even think that she could come after us again."

Bobby shook his head. "I never let my pants down for no demon, kid. There's protection all around this place and you know it."

"Yeah, and she walked right through it. Just look what she did to the Devil's Trap on your ceiling. Bobby, where's Ruby's knife? Please tell me that you picked it up."

Bobby nodded. "I left it in the car." He looked into Sam's eyes and sighed. "All right, all right, I'll get it. Not that I think she's going to come here again. And when I come back we'll talk about this."

Bobby turned and left the room, and as the older man left Sam sank down in the nearest chair with a sigh.

He didn't understand it. He just didn't understand what had happened. He wouldn't put it past Lilith to come after him after she had collected Dean's soul, despite what her deal with Dean had implied. But Lilith had been enraged, practically seething just as if they had broken the deal. As if they had kept Dean's soul out of hell, only that they hadn't. Sam didn't know how they possibly could have.

So what had happened? Why had Lilith shown up here, and – even more importantly – why had she flinched away from Dean's pendant like that? What was it she had called it? A soul catcher. Sam had never heard that phrase before in his life. What did such a thing do? Had it captured Dean's soul somehow, stopped it from going to hell?

Unconsciously, Sam's hand went from his throat to the pendant hanging from his neck, wrapping around it as if trying to keep it safe.

It all made no sense. No sense at all. Even if that pendant had somehow stopped Dean's deal from coming true, why hadn't Lilith just taken it, or destroyed it? Sam had been helpless against her, but still Lilith had flinched back from it as if being too close to it hurt her.

It just made no sense.

Sam was torn out of his musings by the front door opening, announcing Bobby's return. Sam looked up as the older hunter entered. He wanted to cast just a short glance at him to make sure that Bobby had found Ruby's knife, but something was wrong. Sam's eyes immediately darted upwards again, looking closely at Bobby this time, trying to find out what it was that had sent all his warning bells ringing.

Bobby had the knife clutched tightly in one hand, but his steps were halting as he approached, hesitant, nearly stumbling. To Sam it looked a little as if he was hurt, but there was no blood visible anywhere. Heart beating fast in his chest, Sam half-rose from his chair.

"Bobby?"

Bobby took a few more steps towards the table, gripping the wooden surface as if he needed it to keep himself from falling.

"Bobby, what's wrong?"

His hands still holding the edge of the table in a white-knuckled grip the older man finally looked up at Sam. Sam felt the breath catch in his throat at what he saw. There was no trace of pain on Bobby's face, nothing suggesting an injury.

But the eyes that were looking right at Sam were black.

Entirely black with demonic possession.

* * *

It is a work in progress, but since the story is planned out you don't need to worry about regular updates. Maybe not every other day, but still regular, I promise. If you'd be kind enough to leave a review in the meantime, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.


	4. Fickle Human Emotions

Thank you so much everybody for your reactions and reviews for this story. I'm really excited about how many people check in on my story and put it on their alert lists. Thanks so much, I hope the story won't disappoint. And since it's going so good writing-wise right now, there's no need to hold the next chapter back.

Thanks again to Isis-SG1 for looking this chapter through and telling me what she think about it before I posted it. She's a great help in keeping the mistakes at a minimum and making sure I have the voices and characters down. Thanks.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 3 – Fickle Human Emotions**

Sam's gun was still lying in the corner of the room where Lilith had kicked it. But the gun wouldn't help him against a demon anyway.

Lilith had said that every demon who had ever left hell was going to come after him, but that it was going to happen so fast…there hadn't even been time to prepare, to make a plan. If that demon had been able to possess Bobby in the few moments that he had been out of the house…this wasn't good. This so wasn't good.

Without conscious thought, Sam reached for Ruby's knife which Bobby had dropped onto the table before he had gripped it for support. His hand wrapped around the hilt, ready to plunge it into the demon in front of him, but a split second before his hand descended, he hesitated.

This was Bobby.

The demon was possessing Bobby.

If he stabbed the demon now, Bobby was going to die. And Sam couldn't just kill Bobby.

"Put the knife down, Sam."

Sam stopped short, knife still raised in the air, undecided and confused. Something about that voice…Of course it was Bobby's voice. But there was something in it, something that wasn't Bobby. It was the lilt of the sounds, something in the infliction that Sam recognized but couldn't believe, that his brain wasn't willing to put together because it just couldn't be.

"I'd hate to hurt you and make a mess here. Put the knife down, Sam."

Sam's arm lowered without conscious thought and with a groan the demon lowered Bobby's body into the nearest chair. Sam's breaths were coming in short gasps, and he kept staring at the demon in front of him in blatant disbelief, his mind running in overdrive as he tried to make sense of this madness.

"Ruby?"

A small smile pulled at the corners of Bobby's mouth, a mirthless smile that Sam recognized. He had seen the tilt of lips a few times on Ruby, on the woman that Ruby had possessed. He had never before considered that some of the traits he had gotten used to seeing, a cock of the head, a raise of an eyebrow, a smile like this one that said _good boy_, were actually the demon's traits and not those of the body they possessed. But there was something recognizable about Ruby, something that identified her even as she was possessing a body that was so much unlike the one Sam had gotten used to.

"Clever boy Sam. And now sit down, we don't have much time."

Sam didn't even notice as his knees gave in and he lowered himself onto the seat beneath him again.

"What are you doing here?"

"Trying to save your ass, Sam. Again. Though you haven't earned it."

Sam shook his head. "What have you done with Bobby? Is he all right?"

A frown settled on Bobby's…Ruby's face and with a sigh the demon blinked. Suddenly the blackness was gone and Bobby's eyes were looking back at Sam.

"Bobby is in here with me. He's not overly excited about the arrangement, but believe me that neither am I. Right now there's not much he can do about it. He is listening to every word we speak though, because I'm hoping that at least one of you will be clever enough to listen to what I've got to tell you."

"But…but Lilith said she had sent you away. I thought she had sent you back to hell."

Ruby shook her head with a small laugh, a gravely sound from Bobby's vocal chords and not the kind of laughter Sam was used to hear from Ruby.

"She definitely tried to. But I have a trick or two up my sleeve as well. Lilith tends to forget that she's not the only one who knows a few things."

But Sam remembered the way Bobby's body had stumbled back into the house, the obvious signs of weakness his movements had displayed.

"You're hurt."

Ruby shook her head. "Weakened. That she didn't manage to send me back down to the pits doesn't mean that Lilith isn't one ruthless bitch. I'm not on top of my game now, but there will be time for me to get my strength back. Now it's important that you listen to me Sam."

"Lilith was here a while ago."

Ruby nodded. "Yes. And others will come soon, and they're not going to just leave again like she did. You need to listen to me, and listen good."

"What happened? Lilith said we had broken the deal. What happened?"

Sam didn't know why he was tossing random sentences into the conversation even though Ruby told him time and again to listen, but he just couldn't help himself. His mind was disconnected from his mouth right now, and he had no control over what he was doing.

Ruby cocked an eyebrow and nodded towards the pendant that was still hanging visibly over Sam's shirt.

"You and your brother were either very clever or very, very dumb, that's what happened."

Sam's hand went up and curled around the pendant, possessively as if trying to shield it from Ruby's gaze. He couldn't say why he did it. "I don't understand it. Lilith, she tried to kill me. But then she saw the pendant and she flinched back. It's just a pendant, Dean has been wearing it for years."

Ruby smiled. "Oh Sam. _Just a pendant_. If it weren't such a stupid thing to say, it would nearly be cute. What you're wearing around your neck isn't just any old pendant, don't tell me you didn't know that. It's a soul catcher."

There it was again, that name. The expression Sam had never heard before, but the one that held so many implications in just two small words.

"That's what Lilith said. But I don't even know what that is."

Ruby laughed. "Neither clever nor stupid, I see. Just dumb. I guess that's the reason it's called dumb luck." Her expression quickly turned serious again. "That pendant you're wearing around your neck is the reason why Lilith couldn't collect her price yet. And let me tell you that she's pretty pissed off about it. You don't want to piss off Lilith like that, it's not going to end pretty."

"We didn't do anything. Hell, Lilith was there when the hellhound mauled Dean. Dean died right in front of her eyes, all right?" Sam couldn't remain sitting anymore. He got up from his chair and started pacing. "If there was anything off about the deal because of the pendant, wouldn't she have noticed?"

Ruby shook her head again with a smile, as if she was dealing with a particularly thick child.

"Tell me one thing Sam. When did you take the pendant? When did you take it off your brother's dead body and put it around your neck?"

"Earlier. An hour ago, a little more."

"And when did Lilith show up?"

"Half an hour later, give or take a few minutes."

Ruby raised both of Bobby's bushy eyebrows and looked at Sam as if waiting for him to come to a conclusion. When he didn't burst out in a yell of eureka, she rolled her eyes and sighed.

"You don't understand it, do you? When that hellhound mauled the life out of your brother's body, there was nothing off with the deal. At least nothing Lilith could have noticed. The moment your brother died, his precious soul shot straight to hell, just like she had planned. And my guess is that she relished in the fact, despite her little failure in killing your straight afterwards. That must have put a pretty bad dent in her triumph, but Lilith isn't one to leave matters unsettled for long."

"How do you know what happened?"

Ruby shrugged. "I have my ways. It doesn't matter now. What matters is that while your brother's soul went to hell when he died, it didn't stay there for very long."

Sam frowned, his heart drumming a rapid staccato in his chest. He was afraid to think about Ruby's words, afraid that he'd end up coming to the wrong conclusions, that he'd end up developing hope where there was no place for it. But her words…there was only one interpretation, wasn't there? Was there anything he could have misunderstood? The breath caught in Sam's throat as he croaked out his next words.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that the moment you took that pendant off your brother's cold dead body and put it around your own neck in what I'm sure was a tender and teary gesture of brotherly love, Dean's soul could no longer stay in hell."

"But the deal…"

"That's exactly the point, Sam." Ruby sighed and shook her head. "Dean's deal for his soul meant that he sold his soul for your life. His soul was supposed to go to hell. But that wasn't the only deal Dean's soul was bound to, and the moment you started wearing that pendant those two deals started warring."

Sam shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. What other deal? Dean only ever sold his soul once."

"Sam, don't be stupid."

"I should know, shouldn't I? Dean's my brother, I would have known if he'd sold his soul before!"

Sam was pacing again now, one hand in his tangled hair, the other still wrapped around the hilt of the knife. Ruby seemed to be greatly amused by his words.

"Oh Sam. Poor, innocent Sam. While selling one's soul seems to be a fairly popular thing amongst you humans, it's not the only way to bind your soul to something. Dean didn't sell his soul a second time. But he bound it – to you. That's what a soul catcher does, Sam. That's why Lilith is seething with hellfire right now, because as long as you're alive and wearing this pendant, she can't get to Dean's soul. Are you honestly surprised that she thinks you tried to cheat her?"

No. Sam wasn't. There was no room for surprise in his mind right now. He didn't understand a single word of what Ruby was trying to tell him, and truthfully the only words that had really registered with him were the ones that had said Dean's soul hadn't stayed in hell. _Not in hell_. That was a good thing, wasn't it? It simply had to be a good thing.

Though it didn't make sense.

"But how can that pendant…how does it work? How could that thing bind Dean's soul to me?"

"Well genius, you gave it to him, didn't you?"

"Yes, and Bobby gave it to me. So what, is my soul bound to him now, too?"

Ruby sighed, a long and suffering sound. "You really have no idea what a soul catcher is, have you?"

Sam shook his head. "No, otherwise I wouldn't be asking."

"Some hunter you are." Ruby huffed and shifted in the chair, her movements in Bobby's body stiff and uncomfortable.

"Soul catchers are old and rare. Very strong protective charms, and they require a lot more than just being passed on from one hand to the other to work for what they were intended to do. It isn't the passing on from one person to another that makes them so powerful. When you gave that pendant to your brother it was more than just handing it over, otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here. You meant for it to _mean_ something, Sam. It was one of those heartfelt gestures that are so typically human, and as human emotions go there are always strings attached that you don't quite see at first."

Sam shook his head. "So what, because I meant for the gift to mean something more than just a Christmas present it saved Dean's soul from hell?"

"That's putting it in very simple layman's terms yes. But you still don't understand just how powerful a charm we are talking about. Soul catchers are extremely rare, even more so since they're not easily recognizable as such. They could be anything. Sam, they are called _soul catchers_, doesn't that give you at least a small glimpse of how powerful they are? They're means to preserve a person's innermost essence even beyond the physical existence."

"But how? That's what I don't understand. I make one heartfelt gesture and suddenly my brother's soul is bound to me?"

Ruby shook her head. "Now that would be easy and could lead to a lot of unwanted complications Sam. Just imagine you're giving one of these to the woman you think you'll love for all eternity, only to find that her soul is bound to you even when she's banging the mailman behind your back. It's ancient spellwork we're talking about, far more ancient than most things you've dealt with until now. These things don't work with a snap of your fingers. When you gave that pendant to Dean it created a bond between you two, but that alone is not enough to get us where we are now. But my guess is that dearest Dean was so touched by his little brother's heartfelt gesture that he put the pendant around his neck and didn't take it off again. Right?"

Sam swallowed around the lump in his throat. "He wore it most of the time, yes."

Actually, the only times that Sam could remember when Dean hadn't worn the pendant had been in the hospital, both after he had electrocuted himself and the time when he had been in a coma after the car accident. Back then the doctors had taken the pendant off upon his arrival in the hospital. And the shapeshifter had taken it away from Dean when it had been impersonating him. The only time that Dean had taken the pendant off voluntarily to Sam's knowledge had been in anticipation of their arrest to exorcise the prison, and then only because Dean had known that it would be taken from him upon his arrest.

Ruby smiled and nodded as she watched Sam mentally go through the list of how often Dean had taken off the pendant.

"See? He wore it all the time, and over the years all his feelings for his little brother poured straight into the bond. All his love, all his worry, envy, protectiveness, and whatever else our stoic little soldier was hiding away inside of him poured into the bond. And it created a connection that was strong enough to pull his soul straight out of hell." Bobby's face twisted into a cynic grimace upon Ruby's urging. "He must have really loved you, Sammy."

"It's Sam."

The answer came automatically, without conscious thought. It was Sam. Not Sammy. He had told Gordon that in every other sentence, he had told other people before and he'd keep telling people until they finally understood. It was Sam, for everybody but Dean.

Ruby only rolled her eyes. "Whatever. So, do you understand now what this little pendant around your neck did? Dean bound his soul to you, whether or not he signed a contract in blood or French-kissed a crossroad demon. A bond that is just as valid as a contract for his soul. Which is why only people who know what they're dealing with should ever be allowed to handle a soul catcher. I can only hope that Bobby didn't know what it was he was giving to you, it was really, really irresponsible to let children play with such powerful things."

Sam shook his head. "I don't think Bobby knew."

Ruby smiled and turned her eyes to the side with a smile. "You didn't, did you Bobby?" Her expression changed to a more focused one for a moment, as if she was concentrating very hard on something that only she could hear. "Now, don't make this any more difficult old man. We both know I'll find it out anyway."

Sam didn't know what it was that Ruby was doing, but it seemed every bit as if she was holding an inner monologue with Bobby inside of Bobby's head. Or as if she was poking around in his memories without his consent. After a few moments, a smile spread on Bobby's weathered face.

"Oh, of course he didn't know. Otherwise I'm sure he'd have given it to his dearest wife. But that's what you get for giving away things without thinking about it. And it's actually good that way. It buys us some time."

Sam's mind reeled for a moment as he heard the word wife. He had never known that Bobby was married, and the information surprised him as much as it seemed to amuse Ruby. But Sam could feel for the older hunter. He knew how disconcerting it was to have a demon take control over his body and actions, dragging up thoughts, feelings and memories. Even though contrary to Bobby now, Sam hadn't even been aware of what he had been doing while he was possessed.

But his surprise about the revelation of Bobby's wife went as fast as it had come. Sam's mind was still reeling with what Ruby had said before. He couldn't quite fathom how Dean's soul could possibly be bound to him through the pendant. It had been just a Christmas gift. True, after what had happened that Christmas, with their Dad bailing out on him as if he didn't care and with Dean doing everything he could to keep up the façade, even going as far as breaking into a house and stealing those presents…of course it had been a heartfelt gesture. He had meant it when he had given Dean that pendant. It wasn't often that Sam had something to give away as a gift, and that one time he had really meant it. He had wanted Dean to have that pendant, and he had wanted it to mean something. He had wanted the pendant to protect his brother, had wanted it to look out for Dean like Dean looked out for Sam.

It had been a heartfelt gesture, sure enough, but that it should be enough to break a deal with a demon didn't get into Sam's head. He swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the sudden dryness in his mouth.

"What do you mean, it buys us time? Is there…" He didn't want to ask. Sam was terrified of asking that question because he was afraid that Ruby's answer was going to smash the tiny kindling of hope that had sprung to life inside of him a few moments ago. But he simply had to ask.

"Is there any chance of saving Dean?"

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Save the tears, Sammy. Sorry, _Sam_. I said the soul catcher was going to buy us time, not that it was working miracles."

"Time for what?"

Sam was pacing again, and Ruby was tiredly following his movements with her eyes. Or rather, through Bobby's eyes.

"Time to break Dean's deal with Lilith."

Sam stopped mid-movement. "But breaking that deal is the only thing that could have saved Dean. That means it's also a way to save him, right?"

Ruby shook her head. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves with this. I know that you're probably heartbroken over dearest Dean's death, but that's what he is – dead. Live with it, don't get your hopes up then you won't be disappointed."

The words felt like a punch to his gut. Sam bonelessly sank back down into his previously vacated chair and stared at Ruby. It was disconcerting to look at Bobby, see Bobby's face and features, but know that it wasn't the old family friend he was talking to.

"Then what are you talking about? What's all this talk about breaking the deal with Lilith about if it doesn't save Dean?"

"Well, for starters if the deal is broken it might save your precious brother's soul from hell, you ever thought about that?"

There was a sharpness in Ruby's words, but Sam barely heard it. Of course it would be a great step to save Dean's soul from eternal torment in hell. It would be a huge thing to achieve. But it wasn't enough for Sam. Saving his brother from an anguish and pain he could only imagine as a theoretical concept was one thing. Sam didn't want his brother to go through all this. Of course he wanted to spare his brother that experience.

But Sam wanted so much more.

He wanted Dean back.

Saving his brother's soul wasn't enough for Sam. He wanted to save Dean, the Dean he knew. The whole Dean. He wanted to save his brother so that he could have him back in his life, alive and breathing, cracking stupid jokes and throwing around smartass comments as he drove the Impala down the road on their way to the next hunt.

That was what Sam wanted, and he wasn't willing to settle for less.

Ruby was watching Sam attentively, and she let a small smile tug at the corners of Bobby's mouth as if she knew exactly what internal war Sam was fighting right now.

"What, saving your brother from eternal torment in hell isn't enough for you?"

Sam bit his lip, feeling for all the world like the child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. At least he guessed that this was the feeling the metaphor wanted to describe. To Sam, it were just empty words and not a picture he could not relate to. There had been no cookie jars in Sam's childhood, no house they had lived in long enough to think about buying a cookie jar. And taking cookies hadn't been a crime either. In fact, cookies had been a standard part of most meals Dean had served him when their father had been out hunting.

But Sam felt for all the world like somebody who had just been caught doing something they didn't want to be caught doing. Ruby had just caught him hoping.

"What did you mean that the pendant…this soul catcher bought us time?"

Ruby shrugged. "That's what those things were initially designed to do, Sam. Human bodies are so fragile, it really doesn't take much to break them. And the soul is so dependent on the body, even though it's so much more precious than the sack of meat it inhabits. So when that meat sack stops functioning, who wouldn't want to have a way to preserve their soul after the sudden physical departure, just for long enough to settle your affairs."

Sam shook his head. "You can't tell me that it's all those things were designed to do. You keep talking on about how powerful that pendant is supposed to be, and now you try to tell me that it's nothing more than a way to keep your soul from its fate for a few days?"

Ruby sighed. "Oh, so preserving a soul after physical death isn't powerful? Binding a human soul outside of physical existence is near-impossible, Sam. It requires power far beyond what you can imagine, but it isn't enough for you?"

"So what is that thing good for if all it does is buy some more time?"

Sam didn't care that he was yelling. He didn't care. All he wanted was for Ruby to say that there was a chance to save his brother. He needed to hear that there was a reason to keep running from the demons Lilith was going to send after them. Because if there wasn't a chance to save Dean, then Sam didn't know if he could find a reason good enough to keep fighting.

"It buys time, Sam. Time to set things in order. Like time to take out a demon who holds the contract on your soul."

"Yeah, because that's so easy to do when you're dead."

Ruby sighed. "Which is why there is another person involved in the bond, stupid. You don't go ahead and ask somebody to give you a soul catcher just in case you might need a little extra time after your body stops working. You're still seeing it from the wrong side, Sam. All you think about is Dean, but the important part of this whole connection is _you_. Soul catchers depend strongly on the person who offers them, not on the person who receives them. They were designed to protect tormented souls, those who might not be able to save themselves in time. But that protection depends on another person being ready to tie themselves to that tormented soul."

Ruby laughed. "You really have become your brother's keeper, Sam. It's heartbreaking, really, sickeningly heartbreaking. I haven't quoted Scripture in a long time. So could you stop thinking within the box, please? We don't have enough time to discuss the basics of the human soul in depth. Do you want to save Dean's soul from hell or not?"

"Just answer me one question."

Ruby nodded. "Okay, if it helps your fragile state any. What?"

Sam took a deep breath. "Is there a way to save more than just Dean's soul?"

Ruby smiled. "Oh my, you're a desperate one, are you? Are you that lost without big brother looking out for you? Are you that afraid of spending he rest of your life without dearest Dean by your side?"

"Stop calling him that!"

Sam slammed his hands on the table, but Ruby didn't even flinch.

"Just answer my damn question! Is there a way to bring Dean back if we kill Lilith now?"

Ruby watched Sam for a long moment, that smile still lingering on her face. Finally, she shrugged.

"Dean's body is dead. If we kill Lilith her deal with Dean becomes null and void. That won't suddenly make his body come to life again Sam. It'll free his soul, that's all."

Sam didn't believe her. He had no idea why, but there was something in Ruby's voice and expression that stopped him from believing her. "It's not."  
"Look, if you want to be stubborn about this we can just as well stop talking now and wait for Lilith's friends to show up."

"What is there that you're not telling me Ruby?"

"Nothing."

Sam jumped up from his chair and crossed the distance to the demon possessing Bobby in one big leap. Before Ruby even had the chance to move, Sam was standing behind her, her own knife pressed against her throat.

"What aren't you telling me?"  
Ruby swallowed hard, Sam could feel the movement in Bobby's throat, but then she chuckled.

"Stop playing the tough guy, Sam. We both know that you'd never hurt Bobby."  
Sam only laughed, the kind of dry laughter that had no trace of mirth behind it.

"Try me, Ruby. Just try me. Because I'm at the end of my rope, all right? I've got nothing left to lose, and the only thing that's standing between me and a bullet to my brain is the fact that you still have some answers that you're not giving me. So don't tell me what I would or wouldn't do! Don't force me to get desperate."

He pressed the knife against Bobby's throat with a little more force, and he felt Ruby push back against the chair in an attempt to avoid its blade.

"All right." She relented in a strangled voice. "Take the knife away."

"Answer my question, Ruby."  
"Once you take the knife away I will."

Sam hesitated for a moment, but then he did. He withdrew the blade from Bobby's throat and took a step back, careful to remain within a foot's distance of Ruby, just in case that she decided to do anything stupid. Ruby had lied to him before, he was well past the point where he trusted her blindly. But the demon merely breathed deeply a few times and looked up at Sam.

"There aren't any case studies on the subject, Sam. I told you that soul catchers are ancient and rare. Most humans and hardly a demon have ever come across them for real, and not many more know about them. So I can't honestly tell you that I know exactly what's going to happen once you kill Lilith."

Sam nodded. "But?"

Ruby sighed. "But there's one thing you have to consider."

Sam waited, but Ruby didn't make a move to speak. He raised the knife again, right into her line of sight.

Ruby bit her lower lip and drew another deep breath.

"Dean's death was part of the deal, Sam. He wasn't run over by a car, or gunned down by a madman. He was killed by a hellhound as part of a deal with a demon. If you manage to break the deal…"

The breath caught in Sam's throat.

"There might be a way to bring Dean back."

Slowly, ever so slowly, Ruby nodded.

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As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this.


	5. Going Deep

Again, thanks so much to everybody who took the time to read this, and those who dropped me a review. I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the story so far, so thanks to you all. I find that I enjoy writing this story immensely, which is also why the updates are a lot faster than I had expected.

Thanks once more to Isis-SG1 for reading this and letting me know what she thinks about it. She's been a great help in getting this story out the way it is.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 4 – Going Deep**

Sam's breath caught in his throat and he could swear that his heart stopped beating for a moment as he saw Ruby nod.

There was a way to save Dean.

A way to save Dean.

That was the only thought his brain was able to process. And if there was a way to save Dean, just a small one-in-a-million chance that Dean didn't have to stay dead, that his brother could _live_, then Sam was going to make sure it happened. Sam was going to make sure that Dean lived. And if it was the last thing he'd ever do.

Swallowing hard against his suddenly too dry mouth and throat, Sam drew a deep breath.

"How?"

Ruby shook her head. "I told you, Sam. I can't make any promises, I can only tell you that I think it's a possible chance. I know for sure that we can save your brother's soul from going to hell if we manage to kill Lilith soon."

"How soon?"

Ruby shrugged. "We don't have long. You know, the fact that I know a bit more about this whole thing than you do doesn't mean I know everything. They don't exactly teach Soul Catching 101 down in hell, okay? All I know is that we don't have long. That thing around your neck is not going to work forever."

Again, Sam unconsciously brought up his hand and cradled it around the cool metal of the pendant in his palm.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ruby only shrugged. "That a soul catcher isn't something you can just store a soul in for as long as you like. Sam, we can talk about all the details later when there's time and we're safe. Right now you have to believe me. We can worry about Dean's soul in a little while, but right now we need to worry about keeping you alive."

But that was exactly the problem – trusting Ruby. Sam had trusted the demon before, as much as he was able to trust a demon in the first place. Ruby had given him false hope before, had tried to lure him with wrong promises and half-truths. She had promised that there was a way to save Dean back then as well, and it had been a lie. Not the whole truth at least, which made it as good as a lie. Ruby asked for something impossible right now if she was asking for his trust.

"Sam!"

Sam blinked the thoughts away and looked at her.

"What?"

"You need to trust me. You're not safe here. And if you die, Dean's soul is going straight back to hell."

And that's how she got him. Hook, line and sinker. Again. Ruby knew that she could play Sam like a fiddle if she only used his brother, and Sam knew that Ruby knew. Sam's weak spot was his brother, and the whole demon underworld knew about it. But right now he didn't care.

He didn't care that he let himself being played, or that he and Dean seemed caught in a vicious cycle of giving themselves up to save the other, time and again. If that was the price of loving his brother, then Sam was going to pay it.

He was going to play along for as long as there was hope to bring Dean back. He was going to give Ruby another chance at explaining things in more detail before he decided whether or not to go along with what she said.

Sam didn't care about what was going to happen to himself, a threat to his own life didn't bother him. But for as long as his life was still connected to his brother's, he wasn't going to take any chances. So he looked at Ruby and nodded.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Lilith is going to try and kill you."

Sam shrugged. "Let her try. She wasn't particularly successful earlier, both times she tried."

Ruby shook her head with a sigh, a gesture so typical of Bobby that it was easy for a moment to imagine that he was talking to his old family friend and not the demon possessing him.

"She still wants you dead."

Sam shook his head. "She couldn't even touch me, Ruby. She flinched back. What a threat is she to me if she for some reason can't even touch me?"

"Not _for some reason_." Ruby pointed at the pendant on Sam's chest again. "Because of that."

"What? Why?"

"Well, first of all Lilith's powers don't seem to work on you. She tried to kill you in New Harmony and failed spectacularly. Of course she could still stick a knife in you where it really hurts if she thought about using her hands instead of her powers for once, or at least she could have until you started wearing the soul catcher."  
Sam shook his head, again. He had the feeling that it was all he was doing lately. "Why?"

Ruby rolled her eyes. "We don't have time for this, Sam."

"Then make it short. But I won't go anywhere until you tell me what about that pendant makes Lilith so scared."

Ruby shook her head. "The pendant doesn't make her scared. But it's the reason why Lilith can't shoot or stab or strangle you with her bare hands now, either."

"Again, why?"

"Because of what's happening with Dean's soul right now. Dean's soul is bound to two deals that contradict each other. It's like two magnets that repel each other. Lilith has a deal on Dean's soul, but your connection to him stops her from getting to it."

It was all too much for Sam to take in. Far too much. His mind was racing, trying to make sense of everything Ruby had told him over the past minutes, but the thoughts kept running through his head without making any real sense. But one thing about what Ruby had said sent the warning bells in his head ringing.

"What do you mean, two magnets that repel each other? That means it works like that both ways, right? Lilith can't kill me, but I can't kill her, either."

"Sam, while we're still sitting here wasting time chatting like two old friends, Lilith is calling together demons to do the dirty work for her because she can't do it herself. If she can find a way around this, so can we. But we don't have time to sit around here and discuss it. You need to make your choice, Sam."

Sam drew breath to reply, to ask Ruby even more questions despite her warnings. It all still didn't make sense to him, not as a whole picture. All his mind seemed capable of doing was to latch onto single thoughts and repeat them over and over in his head.

_There's a way to save Dean._

_Lilith wants to kill me._

_Dean is bound to me through the pendant._

_There's a way to save Dean. Ruby says there's a way to save Dean._

_Ruby isn't trustworthy. But she says there's a way to save Dean._

The thoughts were warring in his head, and Sam thought that if Ruby finally gave him the details, he'd be able to make sense of this jumbled mess. But before he could even bring a single word out, Ruby cut him off with an abrupt gesture.

"No Sam. We've spent enough time talking. The time for Q&A is over, now it's time for your choice. Just ask yourself one question: Do you want to save your brother's soul from hellfire? Because that's the real chance we have right now. And that chance is about to run out if we hesitate for much longer."

Sam drew a deep breath, but there really was nothing he had to think about. There was no choice he needed to make. It was about Dean, there could only be one choice. Sam nodded.

"All right. What do we need to do?"

Ruby nodded with a satisfied sigh.

"You and Bobby need to go deep. Now. Grab whatever you need from the house and get it into a car. Not Dean's muscle car, and neither the old man's truck. You need to be as inconspicuous as possible. Don't get into contact with anybody you know, no matter how much you trust them. We need to figure out a way how to find Lilith and how to kill her. That's going to be hard enough, you don't need demons trying to kill you all day long to make it even more difficult. Do you still have those hex-bags I gave Dean and you?"

There were in the trunk of the Impala, all but forgotten ever since the drive to New Harmony. Sam nodded numbly. "Yeah."

"Good. They won't stop Lilith from finding you forever, but they'll give you a head start. Don't waste any more time Sam."

"But where do you want me to go? Where do I start looking for Lilith?"

Ruby shook her head as she slowly forced Bobby's body back on his feet. "Just get away from here now. I'll find you tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest. Just try to stay alive until then, think you can keep your head together enough for that?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. But what…"

"I need to get my strength back Sam. And I need to get a new body." She cast a look at the dead young woman who was still lying where Lilith had left her. "I don't like taking leftovers. I'll catch up with you soon Sam." She nodded her head at her knife. "And the next time I'll take that with me."

And then suddenly Bobby threw his head back and a black cloud came roaring out of his mouth towards the cracked Devil's Trap on the ceiling. It looked different than Lilith's departure earlier, though. Somehow, this time the smoke wasn't as…black, not as dark, and it seemed to be moving more erratically, too. Sam wondered if that had to do with whatever it was Lilith had done to Ruby.

Hacking coughs interrupted Sam's musings, and within seconds he was at Bobby's side, putting a supporting arm around the older hunter's back as he was trying to get his bearings again.

"Are you all right?"

Bobby nodded and waved Sam off. "Yeah, I'm fine. Uncomfortable as hell, but not hurt. Stupid bitch caught me unawares."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "What about the protection around the house you've been praising just minutes ago?"

Bobby grimaced. "I guess it's in dire need of an update. This place is becoming Demon Central."

"You heard what Ruby said?"

Bobby nodded. "Yes. We need to get away from here."

"So you believe her?"

"No." Bobby shook his head. "She's a demon and I don't trust her farther than I can throw her. But I believe it when she says that more demons are going to show up here. That Lilith chick seemed pretty intent on seeing you dead. So we'd better get moving. There's a Crown Vic out in the lot, keys are behind the visor. Why don't you pack up whatever we might need and start loading up the car. I'll take care of her."

He gestured towards the dead woman on the kitchen floor and got up. Sam was a bit surprised that Bobby so willingly followed Ruby's advice, without questioning it just once. But Bobby was right in one thing. Whatever Ruby's intentions were – more demons would come looking for them here. They needed to get away, somewhere safe, to regroup and make a plan. Contrary to whatever Lilith was sending their way, Ruby was a known force. Her he could deal with, or so he hoped.

And while Bobby picked up the body of the unfortunate young woman and took it outside, Sam hurried out to the Impala and started grabbing things out of the trunk. He didn't allow himself to think. Right now he couldn't afford to think about the fact that he was getting things out of Dean's car, that they were going to leave Dean's beloved classic car behind, that he was going to leave Dean behind, that they hadn't done laundry in a while which meant that the bags he was haphazardly grabbing contained both his and Dean's clothes.

There was no time for thinking.

There'd be time for thinking later, and hopefully it wouldn't hurt as much then.

Once the clothes and weapons were transferred from the Impala into the Crown Vic, Sam hurried back into the house. There was another bag that he had left upstairs in the bedroom where Dean was, there was the medical kit that still needed restocking, and Bobby needed to take a quick glance over his books, to see if there was anything that they could take along with them, something that would help them find out more about what Ruby had told them.

Sam hurried up the stairs and into the bedroom where he had left the last duffle bag he needed. Of course he had known that Dean's body was still lying on the bed in the room. He could not have forgotten it even if he wanted to. But still it felt like a physical blow when he came hurrying into the room and saw Dean lying on the bed in the exact same position he had left him in.

Lifeless.

So lifeless.

That tiny speck of hope that had risen inside of Sam during the conversation with Ruby turned into a leaden weight in his stomach. Sam desperately wanted to hope, but it was so hard to do when his brother's mauled and lifeless body was lying right in front of him. But he needed to hope, he needed to hold on to the thought that there was still something he could do for Dean, even if it didn't seem like it right now.

He needed to cling to that hope because he needed it as much as he needed air to breathe.

Sam drew a deep breath and forced himself to look away from Dean. He had had his hours of grieving over Dean's body, now he needed to focus on something else. He needed to focus on what little hope he had left because right now it was all that kept him going.

Sam quickly grabbed the duffle bag and the nearly empty medical kit and turned to leave the room again, but then another thought struck him. If Lilith was going to send other demons after them, he could not just leave Dean's body lying here. With the duffle bag and the medical kit still in his hands he sprinted downstairs again. He dropped the things onto the floor by the kitchen table and started to pull open cabinets and drawers.

"What are you looking for?"

Sam turned around to find Bobby standing behind him, watching him with a frown on his face.

"I need salt and chalk. Cats-eye shells if you have them."

Bobby frowned, his mind quickly catching up. "Protection? For what?"

"Dean's body."

A look of understanding crossed the older man's face and he gestured towards the large cabinet beneath the sink. "There's a container of salt in there. I'm going to get the other stuff."

Sam opened the cabinet, grabbed the container and hurried upstairs again without another word. The bed Dean was lying on was standing with the headboard against the wall, leaving Sam with no choice but to grab the entire frame on the foot end and pull it away. Dean wasn't extremely heavy, but the bed was a massive wooden construction and by the time he was done, Sam was panting from the exertion.

It was strange how good he was able to function if he only had his mind focussed on a specific task. Quickly Sam had poured a ring of salt around the bed, had placed additional lines of salt in front of the window and door, and when Bobby came up with the chalk and the shells, it was only a matter of minutes until Sam had placed all the protection he could think of without extensive research around Dean's body on the bed.

Wiping his sweaty brow with the back of one hand, Sam stepped back. "Think that'll be enough?"

Bobby shrugged. "That depends on how long we're gone. If the demons want to get to his body real bad, they're going to find a way. But my guess is that Dean's not going to be their primary concern. They're going to be looking for you."

Sam nodded. He didn't feel comfortable about this, not at all. Every fibre of his being screamed against leaving Dean behind. But there was no way for them to take Dean's body with them, so they had to make do with the little they were able to come up with in the short time they had.

"I've loaded all the bags into the car." Bobby said. "Also packed a few books I think might help. I'm sure that somewhere in this mess is something that'll might tell us more about soul catchers, I've been meaning to clean it up and get it all sorted for ages…"

Sam shook his head. "We don't have time to search. We need to leave."

"You got everything you need?"

Still looking at Dean's body, Sam shook his head. "No."

The thing Sam needed most in his life was the one thing he couldn't take with him on this journey. Dean. Sam kept his eyes on his brother for a few seconds longer, then he drew a deep breath and turned his head away. "But everything we can take along. Let's go."

Bobby nodded, and Sam followed him out of the room, once more checking the line of salt in front of the door before he closed it with the silent vow only to return once he had managed to save his brother, in whatever way possible.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed, thanks for taking the time to read it. As always, I'd appreciate it if you dropped me a review to let me know what you think. Thanks.


	6. In Between

Here you go, a lot quicker than planned since this is such a short chapter. Again thanks to everybody who read and those who took the time to review, it really means a lot to me. And thanks again to Isis-SG1 for reading through this before I posted it, and for telling me that I didn't go overboard on it.

Slight spoilers ahead for A Supernatural Christmas, again.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 5 – ****In Between**

It was dark.

So incredibly, horribly dark.

The darkness absolute, not merely the absence of light. It felt like a thick blanket that was wearing down on him, pressing down on every inch of his body, crushing him. Crushing his chest, leaving him unable to breathe, starved for precious oxygen even though that little voice in the back of his head screamed that he shouldn't need to draw breath anymore. He was existing beyond the need to breathe, but that didn't make the urge to do it go away, and it got worse and worse with every second.

It all felt so wrong, that all-encompassing darkness which his eyes couldn't penetrate. He couldn't see a single thing, couldn't see the dangers that were lurking in the shadows around him, only waiting for the moment to strike. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. They had to be there.

There was evil in the dark.

It was one of the things he was sure of. A simple fact of life, like the knowledge that the sky was blue and that a hot stove burned your fingers if you touched it.

It was a truth.

There was evil hiding in the dark.

He was in the dark, and he couldn't move, couldn't look out from where it would come to strike at him, couldn't even move to defend himself.

And if whatever was watching him out there was going to strike, the pain would return. He remembered the pain, the horribly agony he had been in, the feeling of his flesh being pierced and torn. He didn't want the pain to return, he'd do anything to stop the pain from returning.

Even if it meant spending all eternity here in the darkness, thinking about the possible evils that were only waiting to tear him apart.

_It's really special._

He couldn't tell where the words came from, whether they were inside his own head or coming from somewhere around him. But he hoped they came from somewhere around him because that meant he wasn't alone. Or maybe those evil things lurking around him were just playing with him.

The darkness didn't help his hearing any, the words were faint, barely audible, and he struggled against the invisible bonds holding him, craned his neck and desperately strained to hear more.

It were words.

Something to hold on to.

It was a primal reaction, a basic need that suddenly rose inside of him – the need not to be alone, to know that wherever it was that he had ended up, he was not alone. He had been alone for so long, every fibre of his existence craved for another presence.

And now there were words.

Somehow he knew them. Somehow, he knew that the man he had once been knew that voice, knew those words, had heard them before. If he could only hear it all, maybe he'd find his way back to what he had once been. To who he had once been.

_Here, take this._

Take what? He couldn't take anything, he couldn't move, couldn't even breathe. But it was important that he followed the voice's instructions. The voice was a good one, he instinctively knew it. That voice wouldn't hurt him, never ever hurt him, and maybe if he just latched onto it, if he held on just tightly enough, that voice would carry him out of the darkness.

_No. No, it's for Dad._

No, no, no! He wanted to take it. He really wanted to take it, whatever it was. It was important that he took it, and if he could only move…he'd take it, even if it was for Dad.

Dad.

There was no face. No memory. Just…flashes. Feelings. Some good, some bad. Mostly good. Or at least he thought so. But no face, no name. Just that word, Dad. A title detached from its meaning here in the darkness.

_Dad lied to me. I want you to have it._

And he wanted to take it. He wanted to clutch it, whatever it was, clutch it tightly in his immobile hands and hold on to it in a desperate hope that it might be able to save him from this nightmare of darkness and solitude.

He desperately wanted to have it.

Whatever it was.

_Y__ou sure?_

Yes, he was sure. As sure as he had ever been about anything in his life. Please, don't pull that tiny fleck of hope of not being alone away again. This was something good, he instinctively knew it. He only needed to hold on to it.

_I'm sure._

He was sure too. Sure of so many things – that he was alone, that he hadn't always been alone, that the word Dad had held a meaning to him once, before he had been thrown into this absurd world of darkness, and that he needed something to hold on to before he got lost forever.

_Thank you Sam. I…I love it._

Sam.

He wanted to smile broadly, if only he could move the muscles in his face. He wanted to laugh, if he hadn't forgotten how. The laughter was bubbling up inside of him but it was suffocated by the darkness before it could escape his lips.

Sam.

His mind circled around that one word in excitement.

Sam.

There was an image there. More than one. It was as if that one word, that name had opened up a floodgate in his mind and the images just started flowing back into his awareness.

A small boy with eyes that were too big for his face, eyes that melted every resolve, that could make him do anything with just one look. Eyes that hadn't changed over the years, that could still twist his heart and shape his actions with one shift of their expression. Eyes that were watching him as he received the amulet, nervously trying to gauge whether he liked the gift.

_I…I love it._

The amulet. He had loved it, had loved to receive something somebody else – something _Sam_ – considered special. But that wasn't what he hadn't wanted to say. Not _it_. _You_. It had never been I love _it_. It had always been _you_ instead of _it_. But those words had been all he had been able to say, all that the boy and the man he had once been had been able to smuggle past his defences. I love it. _It_, not _you_. He had never been able to make that one big admission, not with words.

With actions more than once, over and over again.

But never with words.

Sam.

Sam had been willing to say those words more than once, he knew. But he had never let him. And words hadn't mattered because he had always known. He had never needed to hear the words. And during those rare moments when dark doubt had crept into his mind, all he had to do had been to touch the pendant around his neck to make sure that he never forgot.

He still couldn't move, couldn't even tell what position his body was in if he still had one, but he needed to move, needed to bring up his hand and touch the amulet around his neck before he forgot, before the words he had heard got lost in the darkness and he forgot again who he had once been.

He needed to hold on to the amulet so that he didn't forget.

Sam.

He needed to hold on to that thought, that was the one thing he could not forget or else he'd be lost.

Sam.

Remembering Sam was hope, hope was Sam, Sam and hope, hope and Sam, SamhopeSamhopeSamhopeSamhopeSam…

And then his hand moved, or the darkness around him moved, he didn't know which, but suddenly there was a comforting, well-known weight in the palm of his hand, the carved amulet cool against cold skin, and it felt like a surge of electricity going through him when he realized that he had managed to hold on to it after all.

He had Sam.

He had always had Sam, and even if he had nothing else in the world or in the darkness, he always had Sam.

And as long as he had Sam, he wasn't lost.

As long as he remembered the face of the boy and the boy's eyes in the man, as long as he remembered that Sam was the most important thing in his own world, he wasn't lost.

There was hope.

_It's really special._

Never _it_. Always _you_.

* * *

The dialogue in this chapter is taken from A Supernatural Christmas, quoted not according to memory, but to SupernaturalWiki.

Thanks for reading and as always, I'd appreciate it if you told me what you think. Thanks.


	7. Just Another Road Trip

Again, thanks for the reviews, and for sticking around with me on this story. The next parts broke up a little strangely in chapters, which is why this one is a bit shorter and the next one is going to be rather long, but that's just how it worked out.

Again, thanks to Isis-SG1 for proof-reading this for me.

Enjoy

* * *

**Chapter 6 – ****Just Another Road Trip**

The Crown Victoria was a fifteen year old dusty blue car that looked as if it would not make the next fifty miles without falling apart. But the engine was running smoothly and steadily, belying the old appearance of the car. Sam wasn't surprised, though. Bobby knew his way around cars, he could keep an engine in good working condition with little effort, but he wasn't one to give much about a car's appearance.

They got into the car and sped away from Bobby's house without looking back once. They had done all they could there, if Ruby could be believed for once, whatever happened next was going to happen somewhere else.

It tore Sam apart to drive away in Bobby's old car right now, leaving everything that meant something in his life behind. Dean. The Impala. The two things that for the past three years had become his home, and now he was leaving them. True, he was doing this on the remote possibility that there was something he could still do for Dean, something that might at least help save his soul, if not his life. And that fragment of hope was the only reason why Sam was able to do this, why he was able to leave his life behind.

And in a way it was significant that Sam left everything that mattered to him behind. Wherever this was taking them, there was one thing Sam was sure of – he was going to do whatever he could to save his brother. Whatever it took. If Lilith thought she could collect Dean's soul without a fight, then she was wrong. Sam was prepared for the fight, and there were no holds barred in this one. He had nothing left to lose.

For the first two hours of the drive, nobody spoke. Bobby was driving them steadily, with no particular direction in mind. Their only destination was as far away from Sioux City as possible. Getting out of South Dakota would be the next step on their list. And it didn't matter whether they went north, south, east or west. It didn't matter at all for as long as they had no clue what their next step would be.

Sam for his part simply stared out of the front window at the scenery passing by. His mind was running on empty, the information overload and their hasty departure rendering him unable to think. Fragments of what Ruby had told him kept flashing through his mind, but just as earlier they didn't make any real sense. He was relying on blind faith for Ruby to come back and find them so that he'd get some answers later on. If she didn't, his head would probably explode from all the disconnected thoughts flashing around in it.

Sam found that he was reaching for the amulet around his neck in regular intervals, closing his hands around the cool and smooth surface for a moment to assure himself that it was still there.  
The thought that the pendant held the power to change something about Dean's situation, to help his brother, was still a revelation Sam had to chew on. Taking the pendant had been a spontaneous gesture, an expression of Sam's desire to keep something of his brother with him. If he hadn't done that, if he had resisted the urge and had let Dean keep the pendant he had been so attached to…the implications of that were still too much for Sam to fathom. If he hadn't taken the pendant, then he'd not have that tiny bit of hope that kept him going right now.

But thinking about the pendant also brought other thoughts in his head racing. Neither he nor Dean had known that the pendant was this powerful. He guessed that Bobby hadn't, either. The older hunter was not stupid enough to put a powerful charm into the hands of a child. But that didn't explain where that pendant had come from originally, and it was a question Sam really wanted to have answered. That pendant was connected directly to his brother's fate, Sam needed to know everything there was to know about it. But with Bobby, he had to find the right way to ask the question to make sure that he got it answered.

"Bobby?"

The older hunter grunted in response, not taking his eyes off the road. Sam took that as a cue to keep talking.

"That pendant."

Bobby looked at Sam from the corner of his eyes for a second before he turned back towards the road.

"I told you, I had no idea that it was this powerful. I'd have never given you something that could screw around with somebody's soul. I just wanted you to have a Christmas present for your Daddy."

Sam nodded. "Yes, I understand that. But I remember that when you gave it to me, you said that it was something special."

Bobby laughed tiredly. "Yeah. Sam, you were a kid back then, it was just something I said. I thought it would mean more to you if you thought it wasn't just a plain pendant. I thought it was a charm, a not very strong protective charm, nothing else. Charms placed on objects often weaken after years and decades, but maybe that's what those soul catchers appear to be when they're not used. Anyway, I meant it as a symbolic gift, not something that was really supposed to work."

Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The bucket seat felt strange after years of riding around in the Impala. Sam had gotten used to the bench seat that left far more space for him to stretch his long limbs than the bucket seat did.

"But where did you get it in the first place? If those things are as rare as Ruby said, it can't have been easy to find it."

Bobby was silent for a long moment, so long that Sam already thought the older man wasn't going to answer the question. But then he drew a long breath.

"I had it long before I got into hunting, kid. My wife…"

And then Sam knew why Bobby had hesitated in answering. Sam had no idea about the story of Bobby's wife or why she was no longer with him. He had first heard about her existence a mere few hours ago. It was obvious that there seemed to be a sad story behind it, though. Everybody had gotten into hunting somehow. And maybe for Bobby, it had somehow started with his wife.

Bobby continued after a few moments, a slight smile on his face.

"My wife hoarded that kind of stuff. She couldn't go anywhere without bringing home rings, necklaces, pendants, and all other trinkets. Not because of any supernatural meanings, or because they were precious. She just liked that stuff. She used to give them away as presents, and never wore a ring or necklace for longer than a day at a time. She always used to say that I should be able to guess her mood by what jewellery she was wearing." He laughed softly. "Though she had too damn much of that stuff for me to ever make heads nor tails of it, but that's just how she was. She loved that stuff, so I never said a word about it."

Another moment of silence followed, as if Bobby was picking his next words carefully.

"I only got into hunting after she died. Got pretty lost in it for a while after she died, too. Always on the road, never home, trying to avoid thinking about her. It's a long story. But eventually I decided to sort out her stuff. Couldn't bear to look at it anymore, and I guess it was part of what was keeping me away from the house. I also went through her jewellery, three big boxes of that stuff in our bedroom. One of the first things I grabbed turned out to be a real charm. I didn't know much back then, but I knew enough to recognize it."

He shrugged. "I went through all the stuff she had collected, and I found maybe five pieces amongst it that held any kind of power beyond being a piece of jewellery. Stuff somebody had sold at a jumble market or a garage sale without knowing what they were. But I didn't know that it was a soul catcher Sam. Until a few hours ago, I didn't even know what that was. I took it for a protective charm, like those charms against possession I gave Dean and you. I thought you might like the idea to give your Daddy something to protect him."

Bobby turned his head and glanced at Sam for a second. "I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when I saw that Dean was wearing the amulet the first time I saw the three of you after that Christmas. But I always figured that maybe John had passed it on."

Sam shook his head. "I never gave it to him. Dad, he…I found out about hunting that Christmas. I read Dad's journal, and Dean told me what it was that he was doing. I was so angry at Dad for lying to me, for leaving us alone over Christmas. Dean tried to defend him, just like he always did. Nearly made me pissed at him too. But…you know, Dean was there. He did his best to make up for Dad being gone, for making it as good a Christmas as it could be for me. He put himself in between Dad and me, even though Dad wasn't even there that time. It was just…he did so much for me. So I gave the pendant to him. You had said it was special, and so I didn't want Dad to have it. Dean had earned it. He had earned something special."

A small smile showed on Bobby's face. "I shouldn't be surprised."

Sam frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Bobby checked the rear view mirror as he changed lanes, shrugging as an answer.

"Come on Sam. You and your Daddy, that wasn't always easy. But you and Dean – you've always been inseparable. No matter if you butted heads like crazy or threw punches. Dean always pretended that you were annoying, but he was constantly watching out for you, if only from the corner of his eye. The kid got practically paranoid if he didn't know where you were."

"Yeah, because Dad told him it was his job to look after me."

Bobby shook his head. "No, because Dean _made_ it his job. Hell of a difference there, Sam."

In all honesty, Sam didn't know if he saw the difference. It had always been his Dad telling Dean to "watch out for Sammy", and Dean had done so. Because their father had told him to. Sam knew for a fact that most of the time, Dean hadn't wanted to be stuck babysitting his little brother.

Bobby continued after a small pause, a smile on his face. "And you, you practically hero-worshipped Dean. He never needed to worry about letting you out of his sight, you clung to him whenever you could, always tagged along whether he wanted you to or not. And even when he seemed as if he barely tolerated you, believe me that he was proud of it. John loved you both Sam. You were all he had left. But hunting is something that can easily consume you, become an obsession. I know that better than most others. John did, too. But even during those times when he lost himself in it, he always knew that you boys had each other to rely on. That's what I mean when I said I shouldn't be surprised that you gave the amulet to Dean and not to John."

Sam silently mulled that over for a while. It was a bit disconcerting just how spot on Bobby's words were. Was their family dynamic really that easy to read for an outsider? Even if that outsider was a family friend? At times it had been hard enough for Sam himself to know what he was feeling towards his father and brother. Especially during his childhood. And he still wasn't sure whether Bobby was right about Dean willingly taking up the task to look out for him. But the older man was right about Sam's feeling towards Dean. At times during their childhood, Sam's adoration for his big brother had bordered on hero-worshipping.

Sam clearly remembered what the world had been like when Dean had been able to do no wrong, when his big brother had seemingly known the answer to every question. Whether or not he had given Sam those answers was another matter entirely, but Sam had been absolutely sure that Dean knew everything. Today of course he knew that Dean was far from infallible, but as a kid that thought hadn't once crossed his mind. Not about the things that really mattered.

Sam shook his head and forced himself to empty his mind and stare out the window. He couldn't think about Dean, or about their childhood. Not now. He needed to keep his head clear. When Ruby showed up later – _if_ she showed up again – he needed to be sharp. Sam didn't doubt that Ruby would only tell him what she wanted him to know, that the demon would keep things back if she thought it would give her the upper hand later on. Sam needed a really clear head for that particular conversation.

They drove on in silence, straight ahead on the interstate, trying to put as many miles between them and Bobby's house in Sioux City as possible. They stopped only for gas and once, in the early afternoon, to grab something to eat. They didn't talk much, either. Occasionally when they came to a point where two interstates crossed, Bobby would ask Sam which direction to go, but those questions Sam answered without thinking about it. There was no destination for them, they only needed to get away. It didn't matter where to.

But at one point they would have to stop, they'd have to find a place for the night. Sooner or later they'd have to rest. Sam hadn't slept the previous night and he was sure that Bobby hadn't, either. They were going to need a place to stay for the night, a place where they could rest. A place where they could wait for Ruby. And that was a meeting Sam wanted to be as prepared for as possible.

"How about we start looking for a motel soon?"

Bobby thought about it for a moment, then he nodded.

"All right. We should be passing through the next town in a little while, I'm sure there'll be a motel there. Here or in another fifty miles, makes no difference where we stop for the night."

"Good."

"So how do you figure Ruby is going to find us?"

Sam shrugged. "I have no idea. So far, she always managed to."

"Maybe it's those hex-bags she mentioned."

Sam nodded. He had already had that thought himself. "Yeah."

Bobby looked sideward for a moment. "We might be better off if we got rid of them."

Sam shook his head. "No. Not yet, anyway."

"Why?"

"Because Ruby said they'd keep Lilith from finding us."

Bobby drew breath to reply, but Sam cut him off. "No, listen to me. I don't trust Ruby any more than you do. She lied to me before, and I don't take anything she says at face value. And as soon as I get the feeling that there's more to those hex-bags than protection I'll throw them out immediately. But fact is that Lilith didn't find us before, and she was looking for us. For as long as there's a chance that they really work, I've got to take the chance. We need time to work out a plan."

Bobby nodded slowly, though it was obvious that he was anything but convinced.

"So, what's your plan?"

"We get a room in a motel, see and wait if Ruby shows up. I give her till tomorrow morning, then we'll have to go find Lilith on our own. But if she shows up, I'm going to get some definite answers out of her."

Bobby laughed. "Oh yeah? And how do you intend to do that? For as long as she can come and go any second that she wants to, she's going to play you. And somehow I doubt that she's going to fall for a simple trick."

A small smile spread on Sam's face. "Oh, we're not going for simple, Bobby."

Bobby took his eyes off the road for a few seconds and looked at Sam. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The smile still on his face, Sam gestured for Bobby to change lanes. "Take the next exit."

"Into town?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. We got some shopping to do."


	8. A Small Legacy

Again, thanks to everybody who took the time to read, and also to those who left me a review. And since this chapter and the last one broke off weirdly, this chapter has gotten rather long while the previous one was a bit shorter. No specific spoiler warnings for this one.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 7 – A Small Legacy**

The motel they booked into was just like most of the hotels Sam had stayed in with Dean over the past years. Bobby went to the reception desk to rent their room for the night as Sam started sorting through their stuff. Normally, he and Dean had always left most of their arsenal safely locked in the trunk of the Impala over night. But the Crown Victoria didn't have a lockbox in the trunk, and with Lilith being after them for real now, it was better to be safe than sorry.

They had haphazardly tossed everything into the car upon their departure, the weapons into the trunk and everything else on the back seat. This was going to take a little sorting out. They could leave most of their clothes in the car, but the weapons and books they needed to take in with them.

Bobby came back with the key to their room a few minutes later while Sam was still rummaging through the stuff on the backseat.

"Room 9," Bobby said.

Sam nodded. "Good. There's some stuff I need to sort through, why don't you grab those and go ahead."

He pointed towards one of the duffle bags with weapons and the backpack with Bobby's clothes that stood on the ground by his feet.

"Sure. I'll take this one too. Better get started immediately."

He reached for the bag that contained the items they had shopped earlier and picked it up as well at Sam's nod.

"Sure. I'll just be a few minutes more."

Bobby nodded. "Okay. Holler if you need anything."

Bobby picked up the duffel and the large bag with their purchases, the backpack with his own clothes already slung over his shoulder. Room 9 was just a few feet away from where they had parked the car, and by the time the door closed behind him Sam was already bent over the duffle bags in the backseat of the Crown Victoria again.

There was one smaller bag with weapons and the books Bobby had packed which Sam shouldered and pushed onto his back. That left two bags with clothes, and those were a wild mixture of his own and Dean's, some of them clean and most of them not. It'd be useless to take them all into the motel.

Sam quickly grabbed the duffle bag that Bobby had brought up to him after he had stitched up Dean's wounds. It felt like a lifetime ago, though it had been less than a day.

Under the dim light in the car interior, Sam began pulling out dirty clothes and tossed them onto the backseat at random. They could always clean up later. Right now there was no time for that.

Once he had sorted out all dirty clothes from the one bag, he pulled the second duffle-bag towards him, hesitating a moment before he opened it. This was the bag Dean had packed after their last overnight stay. It weren't solely Dean's things in there, Sam knew that. But it was the bag Dean had packed. Stuff he had touched. Which was a completely stupid thing to contemplate, Sam knew that. It were just clothes. It wasn't as if it mattered who had stuffed them into the bag.

But somehow, it were those stupid little things that were completely throwing him off track right now. Like the thought that Dean had packed this bag. It was completely insignificant, but for some reason it made a lump form in Sam's throat that didn't go away again.

It took a deep breath and a lot of mental chastising before Sam finally pushed those thoughts out of his head and pulled open the zipper of the duffle bag. More clothes came into sight immediately. A few clean shirts, clean underwear, some pairs of socks. Sam started to stuff those into the other duffle bag, then he threw out the dirty clothes he found beneath, repeating the process with all the clothes he found. He had nearly sorted through the duffle bag when his hand suddenly closed around something solid. It was firm and a bit bigger than Sam's hand, and with a frown Sam pulled it out.

He half expected that Dean had packed a book into the duffle for some reason, but what came into view when his hand withdrew from the bag wasn't one of the volumes Sam and his brother used for their research. It was a book-shaped package wrapped in brown packing paper which was held together by a rubber band. Sam examined it in the dim cabin light, but it was just that: something, probably a book, wrapped in packing paper.

Sam turned it over in his hand.

And froze.

The duffle bag with the weapons slid from his shoulder, but he didn't even notice. His eyes were glued to what was written on the underside of the package. Or rather, on the front side of the package, now that he had turned it around.

_Sam_

Just three letters, but Sam would have recognized his brother's handwriting on less. His heart was beating fast in his chest and his mouth was suddenly very dry as he slowly straightened up and leaned against the side of the car, clothes and weapons in the bags by his feet all but forgotten. It was hard enough to keep on his feet without swaying. His hands were shaking as Sam stared down at the package in them.

He didn't want to open it.

Sam didn't know what was in there, but he knew for a fact that his reaction to seeing it would not be good. This was something Dean had wrapped up labelled with his name so that Sam would find it. And that meant that Dean had planned on Sam to find it, at a time when Dean wasn't around anymore to give it to him.

Dean had planned for Sam to find this at a time when Dean was already dead.

Sam didn't want to open it.

He didn't want to face whatever it was Dean thought he had to pass on to him.

He didn't want to open it.

But his fingers had a mind of their own and were already sliding off the rubber band and peeling away the paper even as his mind was still protesting against the action. It was too late for second thoughts anyway, because numb fingers were already peeling away the wrapping paper and Sam found himself holding a black notebook in his hands.

He looked at it with a frown. It was a notebook the size of a normal paperback novel, with a black cardboard cover and a black rubber band holding it together. But what really surprised Sam about it was that he had seen it before. Or at least a book like it. He had seen Dean write in a black notebook while they were working cases, jotting down research and other pieces of information. Heck, he had even used that notebook himself on occasion when he had gone to some library or archive to do research on their current hunt. Why would Dean wrap that notebook up for him to find?

Sam dropped the wrapping paper and his fingers automatically pulled away the rubber band that held the book closed. If this was what Sam feared it was, if his brother had come up with some sappy and totally un-Dean-like _'when you read this, I will be dead'_ speech, Sam was going to…he didn't know what he was going to do. Fall apart, probably. And then he'd get real pissed at Dean. The kind of pissed that was going to last for a long time.

But when Sam opened the notebook and turned to the first page, he didn't find what he expected. This was not the notebook Sam had seen before, this was something new.

The entire first page was covered in Dean's distinctive handwriting, each letter immediately recognizable as coming from his brother's hand. Sam instinctively brought up one hand and ran the tips of his fingers over the words, feeing the slight indentations from the pen. Dean had always pressed down real hard while writing, creating a maze of dents and ridges on pages that he wrote on from both sides.

That Dean had written in that notebook wasn't all that surprising. Sam had guessed it ever since he had first seen what was in the package. No, it was what Dean had written that made Sam stare down at the notebook in disbelief.

_Chupacabra_

_Vicious little buggers that can kill whole herds of livestock if they're not stopped.__ They literally suck their victims dry. Not dangerous to people unless they realize that you're there to kill them, that's mostly the point when they get really pissed at you. They can bite viciously, so should you ever encounter one you'd be well advised to keep some distance. A rod iron bullet to the head does the trick all the time. Dad and me hunted a pack of them down in Albuquerque, New Mexico a few years back, so don't ever let anybody tell you that they don't get farther north than Mexico. They always show up in packs, but you rarely ever see them in daylight. Best way to find them is stake out livestock herds during the night, in an area where you know they've struck before. Of course that's also a good way to get tagged a rustler or a pervert, but that's just part of the job._

_They're sneaky little bastards, if they make you they're going to circle you, trying to get to you from behind. Always have your back covered when you try to hunt down one of them because there's never just one of them around._

Sam read the entry once, then again to make sure that his eyes weren't deceiving him. Then he started to frantically turn the pages of the notebook, looking what else was to find there. But it was all the same.

Page after page was filled with creatures and spirits, some of which Sam and Dean had hunted together, and some which Dean had encountered alone or with their father during the time when Sam had been at Stanford. And every single one of them was a creature or spirit that wasn't mentioned in his father's journal. Dean had written down everything he knew about those creatures, how to recognize them and how to kill them, going in more detail about the ones he knew Sam hadn't encountered, and recounting the basic facts about the ones that Sam had hunted already.

In between there were recounts of certain rituals and exorcisms, what each one of them was supposed to be used for and how it had to be performed. The Latin words were written out clearly and in a slightly different script, as if Dean had been constantly checking the sources to make sure he wrote it all down correctly.

This wasn't the notebook Sam had seen Dean write in occasionally. There were no scrawls here, no hastily scribbled notes, nothing that had been scratched out. Dean had copied down all the information from his notebook, plus everything that he had stored away in his mind instead of writing it down. Dean had written him a hunter's journal, just like their father's.

Shaking his head, Sam turned page after page, barely reading anything but the top of each page. But halfway into the notebook, the descriptions of spirits and creatures stopped and something else covered the pages.

Again, Sam couldn't believe his eyes as he skimmed over the schematics of the Impala's engine his brother had drawn. Most looked as if Dean had wanted to draw a rough sketch of a small part of the engine, explaining its function and how to repair it if it broke, but all the schematics seemed to have grown as Dean added more and more detail, even shading in some places. The labelling was neat, with exclamation marks beside it if Dean really wanted to get an important part across.

_Don't ever work on this__ part if the engine is still hot!_

_Only original parts!_

_The s__crew needs to be really tight!_

In some places Dean had drawn over both pages, and in one place he had even glued in a bigger sheet of paper with a large sketch of the whole engine, folded so that it fit within the notebook when it was closed. Sam stared at it in amazement, wondering how long it had taken his brother to do this and when he had found the time to do it in the first place. His fingers were flipping through the pages, eyes roaming over the script, skimming the pages.

Sam flipped through the entire notebook, through his brother's whole knowledge on the supernatural and on his car. He wasn't reading, he was merely glancing at the pages, looking what was on them, with every turn of a page hoping to find something else, something other than a mechanical description or a hint on how to kill a creature. Sam was hoping, no _craving_, to find something else in it, something more personal than what he was seeing. But then he turned the last page that had writing on it and still hadn't found it.

Dean had left him the perfect handbook on how to hunt all kinds of creatures, and on how to keep the Impala in perfect running condition even if no car shop was in sight. But he had not written a single personal word. No _Hey Sammy_, no _I thought I should leave this to you_, no _This might come in handy_, not even the dreaded When _you're reading this I'll be dead_. Occasionally there was a mentioning of their father when Dean described where and when he had hunted a certain creature or spirit before, but even that always stayed in the realm of Dean passing on information, not memories. No, this was a clinical approach on how to keep the equipment functioning while he was out on a hunt.

Sam flipped through the notebook once more, sure that he had merely overlooked the passage where Dean told him what the hell this was about, the page on which Dean had left him a personal note, but again he came up empty. There was not a single personal remark, not even a mentioning of Sam's name. Not one fucking word. No greeting, no apology, no goodbye, no joke, no smartass comment, nothing that made this book any different from something Dean could have made for a complete stranger.

Sam snapped the notebook shut, and with a roar that was suddenly and involuntarily rising from somewhere deep down inside of him, from right inside his chest where all the breathtaking pain and hurt was located, Sam kicked the side fender of the car with all his might. His boot left a sizeable dent in the metal, and with another yell of pure outrage at what his brother had done, Sam kicked the car again.

It didn't make the pain any less, and it didn't make this whole mess just a degree more bearable, but it was all that he still knew how to do. Dean wasn't there to yell at, he wasn't there to accuse for doing this to Sam, so all he could do was kick the hell out of an inanimate object in the vain hope that it would change a fucking thing.

"Hey! Calm down Sam!"

There was a hand on his shoulder and suddenly Bobby was standing behind him, pulling Sam away from the car. Sam stared at the older man, blinking hard to focus and get the blurriness out of his vision. He was surprised when he realized that his cheeks were wet, and he quickly wiped the back of his hand over them to hide the tears.

"What's going on with you? The way you were yelling, I thought you were attacked."

Breathing hard, Sam bent down and picked up the notebook which he had dropped without even realizing it. He thrust it under Bobby's nose.

"Did you know about this?"  
Bobby stared down at the notebook an inch away from his face as if it might bite him. "Know about what?"

"This! Here, take it! Take a good look at it!"

Sam practically tossed the notebook at Bobby. He didn't care that only a few minutes ago he had hesitated to unzip a bag just because Dean had been the one to pack it, and that now he was throwing around something his brother had deliberately left him. His anger at Dean was all-encompassing at that moment, and it felt good that way. It felt good because for a moment it made the pain stop. So he carelessly threw the notebook at Bobby and stormed into the motel room, the bags by the car all but forgotten.

Bobby looked after Sam for moment in stunned disbelief, then he quickly slammed the car door shut, grabbed the bags and with the notebook clutched in his hand he followed the younger man inside.

Sam didn't care. He was pacing up and down the length of the motel room, hands buried in his hair, his mind focussed on nothing but pacing and breathing and being angry at his brother. Angry because Dean made that deal in the first place, angry because Dean had sold his soul, because he had been too weak to just let Sam die and go on with his life, but most of all angry because Dean had accepted his fate long before that hellhound had torn him apart. Dean might not have shown it, might have pretended to support Sam in most of his plans to get Dean out of the deal, but he must have given himself up days before his death. Probably weeks before his death.

And that thought made Sam as angry as he ever remembered feeling at his brother.

Dean had given himself up, had accepted his death as the only possible outcome of his deal, but instead of using the time left to him to allow Sam in, let his brother get closer and make Dean's death at least a little more bearable for Sam, Dean had once more taken the coward's way out.

He could have just told Sam all those things that he wanted to pass on. He could have showed him how to work on the Impala, in more detail than just that one time he had actually let Sam touch its engine. But no, Dean had written it all down for Sam to deal with after Dean was long gone. At a time when Dean wouldn't be around to have to deal with it.

Just like always.

"I've never seen this before." Bobby said, closing the notebook and carefully putting it down on the nightstand between the two beds. "But it seems he wanted you to find it after…"

He let that sentence trail off into the silence of the room. Sam shook his head, his anger still boiling hotly inside of him.

"When did he even find the time to do this? We've been on the road constantly over the past weeks, and at night…"

Bobby smiled. "Don't tell me that you didn't do research on how to get Dean out of the deal at night, when he was sleeping and not awake to stop you."  
"Yeah, but…"

"So what was to stop Dean from writing this book during those few nights when you actually slept?"

Sam shook his head again, one hand still clutched in his hair as if preparing to tear it out. It still didn't go into his head, it still didn't make much sense no matter how he looked at it.

"But why didn't he just tell me, Bobby? I mean, why not tell me how to work on the Impala? Why not just make a list of rituals and exorcisms, why not just _tell_ me all those things he knew? Why couldn't he just tell me, why did he have to write it all down and wait until he was dead to pass on that stuff, can you answer that?"

Bobby shook his head and sat down on the nearest bed. "I don't know kid. But knowing Dean…"

He shrugged, and with a defeated sigh Sam sank down on the other bed so that he was facing the older man.

"Knowing Dean _what_?"

Bobby nodded towards Sam's backpack. "That journal of your father."

"What about it?"

"It's John's legacy to you boys. It's where he wrote down everything he knew about all the things he encountered over the years, and he passed it on to you so that you wouldn't face those things unprepared. You rely on it to help you out, don't you?"

Sam nodded. "Sure. But come on Bobby, we've encountered so many more things over the years other than the stuff that's in Dad's journal. It didn't always help us out, and even after all these years of hunting, Dad didn't know everything."

"But it saved your asses more than just once. And maybe that's what Dean wanted with this thing, to carry on where your Daddy left off. Writing down everything he had learned since John passed the journal on to you boys. We both know Dean, and you probably know him better than anybody else. With the life you two have been leading, he didn't have much to pass on after he died. He didn't have any lasting things to leave behind. Nothing material except for that car of his. And nothing else but all those things he knew about this crazy world we're living in. I'm sure he didn't do this to spite you, to make you pissed at him even after he died, Sam. I guess it's Dean's way of watching out for you even after he's gone, making sure that he prepares you as well as he can for what's to come."

Sam nearly laughed out loud. "So what, it's supposed to be his legacy or something?"

Bobby thought for a moment, then he nodded with a half-shrug. "If you want to call it that. Sam, did you stop for a second to think that this book here might be your brother's way of making sure that he won't be gone completely, even if he dies? That Dean wrote this to make sure his knowledge can be useful to you when he's gone? That he wants you to remember him by this?"

"You think I need some damn book to remember Dean by? You think he thought I needed his compiled knowledge on paper so that I don't forget him?"  
"I didn't say that, Sam. All I'm saying is that it might have been your brother's intention to leave something that lasts. Aside from the car and a few memories that fade in time. And whatever it was that made your brother write this book, I'm sure he didn't do it to piss you off. He might have done it for your benefit, or maybe he did it for himself, we won't know that. But if you want my advice, you'd damn well better honour it a little bit more than you did just now."

Sam shook his head. "How can I honour or even appreciate that thing if it means that Dean gave himself up long before he admitted to it?"

Bobby shook his head with a smile. "Why would you think that just because he wrote down all he knew means he gave himself up?"

"What else is it supposed to mean? Writing this must have taken him days, maybe two weeks or more. Why would he write down his legacy if he still had hope to be saved?"

"To be on the safe side in case he couldn't be. Sam, if I know one thing about your brother, then that he didn't give up hope. But he was also realistic about this whole thing. He'd not risk you getting killed in an attempt to get out of his contract, but other than that he knew that if there was a way to get both of you out of this deal alive, you'd find it. He didn't give himself up."  
Sam jumped up from the bed and started pacing again. "Of course that makes it better. So this notebook is Dean's way of saying _Hey Sammy, I relied on you but if you read this you screwed up and didn't save my soul from hell. So here's some info on how to live life without me._ That's just great!"

Bobby got up too, and he stepped up right in front of Sam and reached for the collar of his shirt with one hand, pulling the younger man closer and holding him so that he couldn't get away.

"You will listen to me, and listen good Sam Winchester. Dean would have never blamed you for something that was his in the making, you understand me? What I've been trying to tell you, what I've been trying to get through into that thick skull of yours is that your brother trusted you. He trusted you above everybody else, but he also knew that if there was no way out of this deal, you'd end up alone. He's trying to watch out for you with this, just like he's done all his life. I won't let you think any less of him just because you don't know how to deal with all this right now. There'll be a time to go through all that stages of grief-crap, but right now we got more important things to worry about, all right?"

Bobby let go of Sam's shirt and took a step back, and Sam felt himself deflate a little. Bobby was right. They had more important things to worry about right now. Like Ruby, and what to do when she arrived. If she came at all.

But that didn't mean that he could just control his feelings, turn them on and off as he wanted or needed to. His emotions had overwhelmed him after he had flipped through the notebook, and they had been far beyond his control. Rationally he knew that he needed to keep a clear head, but rationality had gone out of the window the moment he had seen his brother get mauled by a hellhound right in front of his eyes. There were some things that were beyond rationality.

Sam drew a deep breath. There'd be time to mull all that over later on. Right now they needed to be prepared.

"How far did you get with the preparations?"

Bobby looked at Sam for a moment, as if judging whether or not he was in any condition to be involved in the preparations, then he nodded.

"I'm nearly done, but I could need your help with the details."

Sam drew a deep breath. "Sure thing. Let's get started. Who knows when Ruby is going to arrive."

Bobby nodded and pointed towards the corner of the room. "Then let's get to work."

They didn't mention the notebook again. But all the while that they worked on preparing for Ruby's arrival as best as they could, Sam could feel its presence on his nightstand burn a hole in his back.

It took them nearly two hours until Sam was content that they had done everything that had been possible in the little time they had had. Now all they could do was wait.

"Why don't you lie down and grab some shuteye?"

Sam shook his head at Bobby's suggestion, pinching the bridge of his nose with thumb and index finger.

"No, you go ahead and sleep for a few hours."

"Sam, you haven't slept last night."

"And neither have you. Bobby, I couldn't sleep right now anyway."

Bobby raised an eyebrow, a disapproving frown on his face. "You sure as hell look tired."  
Sam struggled hard not to flinch. He knew that Bobby didn't mean anything by it, that it was just a phrase that he used often, but just hearing the word sent another stab of pain through his insides. Hell. That's where Dean's soul was. Or had been. Or…whatever. Sam didn't understand it anymore.

"I am tired. But I'm also far too wired to sleep right now. Just get a few hours of sleep Bobby. I promise that I'll grab a few hours myself later. But for now I want to take a look at those books, see if I can find anything about what Ruby told us."

Bobby looked at Sam for a few moments longer, then he nodded. "All right. It's not as if there was a way to change a stubborn Winchester mind anyway. I'll take three hours, four max. Then you'll go to sleep, even if I have to knock you over the head."

Sam nodded with a half-smile, puling the bag with the books that Bobby had brought towards him.

"Sure, whatever you say. As long as you can sleep with the lights on."

Bobby stretched out on the bed, cap pulled deep into his face. "Takes more than some crappy motel light bulbs to keep me awake."

Sam shook his head and settled back against the headboard of his own bed, pulling the first book open in his lap. Bobby was right. Sooner or later he was going to have to sleep. But he didn't want to. He didn't want to face what was undoubtedly going to happen, the nightmares, the replays of Dean's death in his mind. He could barely deal with it all while he was awake, the last thing Sam wanted to do was give up the tiny shred of control he had over his restless emotions and go to sleep.

But sooner or later he'd have to. And Sam dreaded the moment when it was going to happen.

Bobby didn't seem to suffer from the same problems or worries. Only a few minutes after he had lain down, the sound of snoring started to ring through the small motel room.

Sam tried to ignore the background noise, tried to focus on his perusal of Bobby's books, but the words started to blur in front of his eyes and even if he re-read paragraphs over and over again, he couldn't make heads nor tails of what he read.

This all was wrong.

It all felt so incredibly wrong.

Over the past three years, being on the road had become his home once more. But that meant so much more than driving across the country all day long and spend his nights in motel rooms. So much more than that. And he simply couldn't pretend that things were just the way they normally were. Not with Bobby snoring in the bed right next to him.

Dean snored too. Not as soon as he closed his eyes like Bobby did, but often enough. But Dean's snores were something that Sam could blend out as part of his natural environment. Living in each other's pockets like they had done for this long, Sam couldn't have helped but get acquainted with all his brother's sounds – the occasional snore, the mumbling when he dreamt, the restless shifting when the dreams were bad, the sound of Dean's breathing. It was all an integral part of Sam's own life by now. Living this close to his brother, spending his days with Dean and his nights just a few feet away from him, Sam had gotten so used to his brother's constant presence beside him that it was the absence of Dean's sounds that was making him uneasy.

This whole flight with Bobby was like a perversion of the home Sam had found on the road with Dean. It wasn't only that Dean wasn't with him right now. His brother's presence was a huge part of it, but not all.

Sam's home consisted of a number of things which were all missing.

Home was the Impala, with its roaring engine and the spacious bench seat, the car that smelled like leather from the seats, like gas and various types of fast food. Sam's home was the passenger seat as the car glided along another nameless highway or interstate, one of Dean's tapes playing the soundtrack as they made their way to their next hunt.

Home were motel rooms that all started out the same – as a place to sleep that smelled faintly of dust, polish and lemon cleaning detergent. And over night their things were strewn over the room, surfaces were cluttered with research, clothes and empty fast food containers. To Sam, coming into a new motel room was like moving into a new house, and within a night or two the room no longer smelled of the superficial cleaning it had been given before they moved in. All the rooms seemed to soak up the smell of Dean's leather jacket, the smell of Chinese takeout or burgers – with extra onions, the pungent smell of the cleaning solvent Dean used whenever he was methodically cleaning their weapons.

Maybe Dean associated different smells and other things with his home on the road, but for Sam it was all connected to Dean. His brother's smells, his brother's habits, his brother's moods and attitudes.

Those were Sam's associations with home. And this wasn't it. Everything that made being on the road Sam's home was missing now, and he couldn't help but think that without his brother, he simply didn't have a home anymore. Home was with Dean, and now his brother had gone somewhere where Sam couldn't follow.

Sam shook his head and drew a deep breath. This wasn't going to get him anywhere. He still had a chance to change it all, to get his home back, but he needed a clear head for that. He needed to do what he did best – do research, come up with a plan.

A plan to save his brother.

It was Sam's time to look out for Dean, and losing himself in memories wasn't going to help any.

Sam straightened up, ran a hand through his hair and started leafing through the book again. Bobby had blindly grabbed a selection of books on demonology and human souls without knowing whether or not they'd actually be helpful. The first couple of books were not. A whole lot on how demons worked to make humans sell their soul, but no mention at all about what happened if there were two opposing deals on one soul. And nothing about capturing a human soul in a talisman or a pendant. Nothing at all.

Not that Sam had expected to find a treaty on soul catchers anywhere in those books. If those things were truly as rare as Ruby had said, it was no small wonder that he didn't find anything on them in Bobby's books. But still Sam looked, on the off-chance that there might be something to find.

Bobby was snoring the whole time as Sam went through book after book for the next hour, but frustratingly the legal pad which Sam had pulled out to take notes on remained empty. There was nothing to write down.

Suddenly, Sam looked up, eyes darting through the room. There had been a sound, something other than the turning of pages, Bobby's snores and the traffic outside.

Sam put the book down on the bed and got up. With his eyes on the windows, trying to discern whether anything was moving outside behind the curtains, Sam put his gun into the waistband of his jeans and made sure that Ruby's knife was stuck into the belt within easy reach.

His head perked up as he heard the sound again. It was coming from the bathroom.

Sam pulled the knife and slowly advanced the small room. They had kept the light burning in there as well, and through the partly open door Sam could see the shower stall with the shower curtain drawn back. Sam hadn't seen movement in the bathroom earlier, but still he carefully stepped into the room and quickly checked the blind spot behind the door.

It was empty.

There was nobody in the bathroom.

But then Sam heard the sound again, and immediately his head swivelled around towards its source. It was coming from the window, and it sounded just as if somebody outside was brushing against it in an attempt to loosen the latch and open the window. Slowly, knife poised, Sam approached the window. It was the typical motel bathroom window, with milky glass that didn't leave any chance to look outside.

Heart beating fast in his throat, Sam reached for the window latch with his left hand, his fingers closing around the cool metal of the handle. One deep breath, then Sam tore open the small window, knife poised to strike –

- but there was nothing outside except for the branch of a willow brushing against the glass of the windowpane in the gentle breeze that had picked up a little while ago.

Sam sighed and let his hand that was still clutching the knife sink down at his side. A hysterical laugh was threatening to burst from his lips. Now that was paranoid, even for a Winchester. He should have been able to discern a branch brushing against the window from the sound of somebody trying to break into their motel room.

Sam closed the window again and turned to leave the bathroom, knife still clutched in his hand. Maybe Bobby was right and he needed sleep. If he was getting this worked up about a sound that turned out to be nothing, it meant that he wasn't sharp. His mind was weary. Maybe it was time to wake Bobby and get some sleep. He couldn't push off the nightmares forever, sooner or later he'd have to face them.

But as he stepped out of the bathroom, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up again, and all his senses were back on alert. The sound of Bobby's snores, a constant background noise for the past hour, was gone. One look assured Sam that the older hunter was still lying on the bed, in the same position he had been lying in earlier, and his chest was still rising and falling in time with his breaths. But something wasn't right.

And then a shadow detached itself from the small nook between the front door and the built-in wardrobe. Sam immediately brought up the knife again, but the young woman who stepped into his line of sight merely smiled, her eyebrow slightly raised.

She was young, maybe in her early twenties, her hair dark blond and wavy, falling down her back in loose strands. Her face was round and pleasant, full lips pulled into a smile and blue eyes sparkling as she regarded Sam. And the moment she cocked her head to the side, Sam knew who she was. The hand holding the knife sank to his side again and the young woman let out a chuckle.

She spread her arms slightly and turned around on the spot once.

"You like? It was a bit hard to find just the right body, but I think I could have done a lot worse."

"Hello Ruby."

"My, my. I feel honoured Sam. You recognize me whatever shape I come in."

Sam just shook his head and took a few steps to the side, towards the middle of the room. Ruby watched him, then she shook her head.

"But that feeling aside, I'm disappointed. I thought I had told you how vital it was for you to stay alive Sam. Driving a few hundred miles alone isn't enough, in case you thought so. You're leaving yourself wide open here – no salt lines anywhere in sight, no Devil's Traps, and the old man over there is sleeping like a dead man. Which he might be very soon if you don't up the protection around this place a little."

Sam shrugged. "We were tired, Ruby. And I was still awake, I'd have realized if anybody had tried to get in."

Ruby took a few steps closer to Sam, though she was keeping her distance as if she was afraid he might use the knife on her if she got too close. Sam was watching her every move attentively, and Ruby was watching him, until they were circling each other like two predators only waiting to strike.

"You didn't hear me come in."

"That's what you think."

Ruby laughed. "Sam, I hate to break it to you but anybody could come in and crash your little party here. And that includes the demons I warned you about. The demons who are after you, whom Lilith sent to kill you. I can do my damned best to keep you alive, but that won't be enough if you leave yourself wide open to a demonic attack."

Sam smiled and took a step back. "I'm not stupid, Ruby. And I know better than to leave an opening for a demon to slip through."

"Oh yes? Then where is your protection? Where's the salt, the symbols, anything? Where is it?"

Sam smiled and slowly raised his left hand. Ruby followed that movement with her eyes, a slight frown on her face telling Sam that she had no idea what he was about to do. The smile on his face broadened as he stretched out an index finger towards the ceiling. With a frown Ruby looked up at the ceiling, staring at the spotted off-white paint.

"And what am I supposed to see there? The fact that this room hasn't been renovated in about fifteen years is going to save you from demons trying to kill you? Is that it? Let me tell you that most demons don't exactly have a sense of interior decoration. So you need to think of something better than booking into the most ugly motel in the entire state."

Sam smiled and shook his head. "Oh, but we did. We did. Bobby!"

Ruby spun around towards the older man, but Bobby didn't sit up, jump off the bed or made any move to attack her. Without even opening his eyes the older man reached out for the wall beside him and hit the light switch. Darkness engulfed the room around them, broken only by the sliver of light coming from the bathroom. By that, and by the soft glow of the fluorescent Devil's Trap on the ceiling above them.

* * *

Once more, thanks for taking the time to read this. I'd appreciate it if you left me a review and let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	9. A Test of Strength and Trust

Here you go with the next chapter. Specific spoilers in this chapter (quotes or references) for the following episodes: _Jus in Bello_, _Malleus Maleficarum_, _Sin City_ and _No Rest for the Wicked_.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 8 – A Test of Strength and Trust**

Ruby stared at the fluorescent Devil's Trap on the ceiling for a moment, then she turned the full force of her glare on Sam.

"Let me out, Sam."

But Sam only shook his head. "No. Not yet. If we're going to play this game, we're going to play this by my rules from now on."

From the corner of his eyes, Sam saw Bobby sit up on the bed. The Devil's Trap effectively caught Ruby in a four-foot circle at the foot end of both beds, and still it left both of them enough room to move around her. Bobby went over towards the front door and locked it, then he returned to the bedside table and switched on the dim light on the nightstand. It wasn't bright enough to light up the whole room, but with the sliver of light falling in through the bathroom door it was more than enough to make out Ruby within the boundaries of the Devil's Trap.

Ruby watched what Bobby was doing, then she turned back towards Sam.

"This is not a game, Sam." Ruby shook her head. "If you haven't understood that by now, your case is hopeless."

"Trust me that I know how much is at stake."

A smile showed on Ruby's face. "If you really knew that, then you wouldn't have trapped me here. I'm your only hope in this, Sam. I'm the one who can show you how to save your own life and your brother's soul, and I'm the only one you can trust."

Sam laughed mirthlessly. "I don't trust you, Ruby. Trust is something that has to be earned, and you haven't done anything to earn my trust so far."

"Oh no? What about rebuilding the Colt for you when the old man wasn't able to do it on his own? The moment I handed him the working weapon he could have killed me. Why would I hand him a weapon that could destroy me if my intentions weren't sincere? And when you and your brother were surrounded by demons in that police station, I was willing to sacrifice myself to save the two of you. Oh, and by the way – how do you think Dean stopped coughing up his lungs when you were disturbing that little witches club in Massachusetts? Who do you think saved his life? That was me. I caused my own master to be killed so that you could live, and now you tell me that you can't trust me? That's ridiculous, Sam."

"No, it isn't. You've always worked on your own agenda. You've been playing Dean and me, trying to get us to do what you've wanted us to do. And this is going to stop now. If I'm to go along with your suggestions any further, you're going to answer my questions first. I'm not ever walking blindly into something you suggest again."

"Oh, and you think trapping me in a crappy motel room is going to do the trick? I don't think so."

Sam shrugged.

"Neither do I, actually."

He bent down and lifted the comforter away from the mattress so that he could reach underneath the bed. He retrieved two large plastic bottles of water and a book which he put on the bed beside him. Ruby was watching him attentively, though her face was pulled into a fake bored frown.

"Holy water? How imaginative."

Sam shrugged. "It works. I know it works, you know it works."

He took one of the bottles and unscrewed the cap. Without a warning, he struck out his arm, dousing Ruby in a healthy dose of the holy water. Ruby flinched back, but was held back by the invisible boundaries of the Devil's Trap. Some of the holy water hit her, and as the flesh on her arm started sizzling she couldn't help the distressed sound of pain escaping her lips.

Sam put the bottle on the floor beside him and watched Ruby impassively as she rubbed her arm.

"That was uncalled for."

But Sam wasn't about to break out the pity now. "As I said, we both know it works. And I'm done playing word games and riddles Ruby. If there's one thing you need to be sure about then it's that I'm done with that. I want answers, I want them short, precise, and I want them now."

"Or else you're going to douse me in holy water until I beg you to stop it? Sammy, maybe you should get yourself checked out. I get the feeling that you're channelling your brother far more than you're aware of. He was always the part of your little travelling freak-show whose brain wasn't exactly his strong suit."

"It's Sam."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Sam. Fine. So _Sam_, you got the holy water. Help me, help me, I'm scared. Listen, without me you're not going to be alive for very much longer. Threatening me is not the way you want to go now. Let's just stop this charade."

Sam shook his head and picked the book up from the bed.

"It's not a charade. It's actually very simple. You're saying you want to help me – fine. But if you do, I want to know exactly what it is you're planning. I want to know what you know. And if you don't give me the answers I want to have, I'll just do this on my own."

"And die?"

Sam shook his head again, a slight smile on his lips. "Do you really think I'm still worried about dying? Do you really think I still care? If I'm bound to die, so be it. I'm tired, and I no longer care."

Ruby stared at Sam for a moment, then she shook her head like one would do when disappointed with a particularly stupid child.

"You can douse me in holy water for all you want, but that's not going to help you any!"

Sam shrugged again and reached for the book which he had deposited on the bed earlier.

"Then I'll just finish what Lilith started."

He opened the book and started flipping pages under Ruby's stunned gaze.

"What?"

"It's just a few questions, Ruby. We're playing by my rules now, and that means you're going to answer my questions, then I'll let you out of the Devil's Trap. If not, you'll just have to wait for the next chance to get out of hell before you can try and screw with my life again."

Ruby looked from the book in Sam's hand to his face and back again.

"You're not going to do this."

"No?" Sam had found the right page in the book and looked up at Ruby again. "I found just the right thing here. Starts off like a standard exorcism, but with a nice twist in the end that'll keep you in hell for a long time."

"Sam!"

Ruby's tone implied a warning, but Sam didn't particularly care. She had her chance, now she needed to see that he was serious.

_"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas…"_

Ruby started breathing hard and her eyes rolled around nervously.

"Sam, stop it."

_"...omnis incurso adversaris infernalii, omnis legio…"_

"Sam!"

Ruby's hair had stared waving in a breeze that wasn't even there, and sweat had popped out on her forehead. "Stop it."

_"...omnis congregatio et secta diabolica…"_

Ruby cried out and fell to her knees, holding her head in her hands.

"Stop it Sam! Just ask your damn questions and I'll answer, but stop this!"

Sam looked up from the book, and when he stopped reading Ruby slowly looked up at him, her eyes dark pools of black.

"Stop. Ask your questions, I'll answer. But stop this right now. If I go back to hell, all is lost. And that means mostly for you, because one day I will get out again. But then it's going to be too late for you, and for what you could still achieve. So put that damn book away and let's get this Q&A get over and done with."

Sam watched her for a moment longer, then he put the book down on the bed, still open on the page with the exorcism just in case he changed his mind.

"Pity. I hadn't even gotten to the good part yet. Those first few sentences I know by heart by now."

Slowly, Ruby scrambled to her feet, but she was swaying slightly, as if her legs were too weak. Sam wondered what she had done in the short amount of time since their last meeting to 'get her strength back' as she had called it. Or whether it had been enough.

Without taking his eyes off her, Sam pulled a chair up and pushed it towards Ruby into the boundaries of the Devil's Trap.

"Here, sit down before you drop."

Ruby glared at him but she sat down all the same. Seated like that, she was sitting right in the sliver of light falling in from the bathroom door. It illuminated half her face while it cast a shadow on the other half, a strange display of light and shadows on her face. Behind her, Sam could see Bobby watching both of them attentively, bottle with holy water within reach, never once looking away from the demon.

"Room service leaves something to be required around here." Ruby remarked. Sam picked up the bottle and held it out to her.

"You can have a sip of that if you want to."

"Screw you. Ask your questions, so that we can get to the really important parts."

"Where is Dean?"

"What?" Ruby laughed out loud. "That's your important question?"

"What's so funny about that?"

Ruby shook her head, but the smile stayed on her face. "Oh, nothing. It's just that I expected you to start ticking off the really important points from the list first."

"Believe me that this is the most important point. Where is my brother?"

"In the limbo."

Sam frowned, searching his memory for anything he had ever heard about that. He came up empty. Looking up at Bobby, he found the older hunter shake his head slightly.

"The limbo?"

"There an echo around here?"

"What is the limbo, Ruby?"

Ruby shrugged. "The great between. Neither here nor there. The place where drifting souls go off to."

Sam drew breath to reply, but Ruby cut him off.

"No, listen to me. I know what you're going to ask, and I cannot answer you that question. I told you before, they're not teaching courses on that kind of stuff down in hell. It works like this: a human dies, his soul takes off – either to hell, if the person was naughty, or to…well, I don't know where else souls could possibly go. The road not taken and all that. Maybe they go to heaven, if it exists. Personally, my theory is that they just evaporate. Poof! A whole life wasted without sinning just once in hope of going to heaven and bang! – bright light, curtain falls, end of show. But of course your brother had to make an exception. His soul was bound straight to hell, couldn't stay there because of the brotherly bonding thing you two got going on, so right now his soul is hanging in between, waiting for further instructions."

"But where…what is that limbo?"

Ruby shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. It's no place Sam. No physical place. Just…in between. All I can tell you is that he probably isn't very comfortable there."

"What makes you say that?"

Sam couldn't help a slight note of worry from creeping into his voice, and judged by the amused tilt of her head, Ruby hadn't either.

"Because one thing I do know – Dean's there alone. Just his soul, with only himself for company. It's not hell in the sense of pain and suffering, but being confronted with everything that's you might be just as bad."

"How long can he stay there?"

Ruby shrugged. "Again, no scientific studies on that one. Not long. For as long as what's binding him keeps working. And this," she pointed at the pendant around Sam's neck, "is not going to work for very long."

"So I kill Lilith and his deal's over. He's not going to hell?"

"Since Dean is still hanging in the balance, that would be my best guess, yes. But maybe you didn't listen during our last meeting – you can't kill Lilith. Even if you had the knife you stole from me poised above her, ready to strike, you won't be able to do it. Magnets repelling each other and that, remember?"

"I do. Then how were you planning on killing Lilith?"

Ruby laughed. "What gave you the idea that I knew a way to kill her?"

"Because you said so. Before Dean died you had a plan. What was it?"

Ruby just smiled. "It's too late for that now, Sam."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I wanted you to use your powers. I wanted you to finally tap into that potential of yours. Azazel blessed you with powers far beyond your belief, far beyond even Lilith's belief, when he came to you as a baby. You have such a huge potential. Remember how Lilith used her powers to wipe out an entire police station? That's large scale we're talking about. And when she tried to use those powers on you? Poof, nothing happened. You're far more powerful than you can imagine, and if you only broke down that noble barrier in your head that keeps you from using them, you could wipe Lilith out with the swipe of your hand. Or rather, you could have, until that little problem about you not being able to kill her came in between. So now it's too late."

And actually, Sam felt relieved at those words. Two days ago he would have seized the opportunity. He nearly had. If Dean hadn't stopped him, he'd have followed Ruby's plan. For the purpose of saving his brother's life he had been willing to tear down the barrier Ruby had been talking about. He had been ready and willing to brush aside all his doubts and fears about that unknown dark side in him and use it to save Dean.

Only Dean hadn't let him.

And maybe that way, his brother had saved him one last time.

Because while Sam was willing to do anything to save his brother, he knew that he'd not be able to live with himself if he allowed something evil, something demonic to take over. He didn't want to be tainted, he wanted to be normal.

For Dean, and only for Dean, he had been willing to harness that demonic power inside of him, all consequences be damned. He still was ready and willing to do so. He was willing to bring that sacrifice for his brother. But he was secretly glad that it was not an option.

_We stop being martyrs._

Sam had to stifle a smile. Dean had a knack of always knowing the right thing to say. They couldn't go on like that, with one of them giving his life to save the other in a vicious cycle of endless repeats. They didn't have the strength left to keep doing this.

Which meant that this time, Sam was going to do it the way he had learned to do things – his father's way. Tackle the problem straight on, always look for the cleanest, easiest and most effective solution. And be prepared for all eventualities.

_And if we go down, we go down swinging._

"We still got the knife."

Ruby's eyes automatically went to the knife in Sam's belt.

"_My_ knife, you mean."

Sam shrugged. "Whatever. The main thing is that we got a knife that can kill demons."

Ruby smiled. "Of course. So your plan is to find Lilith, take the knife with you, distract her somehow and hope and pray that she won't notice how the old man is trying to stick the knife between her ribs because you can't do it. That sounds like a foolproof plan to get yourself killed."

"So what is your suggestion?"

"Let me out and I'll tell you."

Sam shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

"What, afraid that I'm going to take off the moment you break the Devil's Trap?"

"No. But for as long as you're caught in there, I can send you straight to hell if I get the feeling that you're lying to me again. So what is your plan?"

"Who said I had one?"

"You came to Bobby's to warn us. And since you left you had enough time to make up your mind. See it as a test of faith Ruby. If you tell me what your plan is, and if it sounds doable, I might just let you out."

Behind Ruby, Bobby's face turned into a surprised frown, but he didn't interrupt Sam's conversation with Ruby.

The demon watched Sam for a few long seconds, then she sighed.

"Lilith still has the colt."

Sam raised his eyebrow. He hadn't forgotten about the colt, but ever since he had gotten to know that Bella had given it to Lilith, Sam had given up hope that they'd ever be able to get it back.

"And she's surely just waiting to hand it over to us."

"There are ways to get to it. Not for you or for Bobby, but for me."

Sam laughed. "Of course. I should have known that your plan involved trusting you."

Ruby smiled. "And I'd hate to disappoint."

"So what, you're going to find Lilith for us, get the colt for us and then help us kill Lilith?"

"That's putting it very simple, but yes. That's the basic plan."

"And of course that plan has no holes at all. Like how to find Lilith in the first place. Or do you know where she is?"

"Well, there are only limited options for her. Powerful as she might be, Lilith can't go back to hell and return to earth as she pleases either. Not that she'd want to go back to hell even if she could. Nobody in their right mind would."

"So she's here somewhere."

Ruby nodded. "Yes. Where exactly I don't know, but there are ways to find out. My guess is that she's trying to keep some distance, but she won't stray too far away from where the action is."

"Taking another holiday?"

Ruby leaned back in her chair and smiled. "Lilith is very particular about that. But since the last holiday she took ended in such a disaster, I'd say she might try to remain inconspicuous."

"What was all that about anyway? Possessing that little girl, the birthday party?"

"What else do you expect from a child?"

Sam opened his mouth but the words died on his tongue. He shook his head.

"A child?" He finally forced out. "Are you trying to tell me that Lilith is a child?"

"Well, currently she is a demon. But she was a child at the time when her soul went to hell."

"But…how?"

Ruby laughed. "Oh Sam. So naïve. You should know by now that there are different ways to end up in hell."

"Yes, of course. But a child?"

There was a smile on Ruby's face and a sparkle in her eyes that made Sam feel nauseous.

"It's what every demon's after, Sam. Children's souls are so pure, so untainted – it is a great achievement for a demon to get such a precious treasure down into the pits. There is much natural power in the soul of a child, and the demon it turns into…well, you have seen what Lilith is capable of."

"But how does a child end up in hell? An adult selling his soul I comprehend, but a child?"

"Oh, the things I've seen, Sam. But who said that Lilith did the selling herself? She is old, she was born in desperate times. With many children, no money and no harvest, families were getting desperate. We're talking the Dark Ages here, more than once a family sold one of their children so that the others could survive. Sacrifice wasn't uncommon. Still isn't today. And since a child's soul is so precious, there was always a demon around to make the deal."

Sam couldn't comprehend what he was hearing. If Lilith was a child…it went against everything Sam believed in, against every urge in his body that said children were weak and had to be protected. Of course she was a demon, but if Lilith was possessing the body of a young child – Sam would hesitate. He had hesitated before.

"So she always possesses little girls? When she came to Bobby's, she was possessing a young woman, not older than you…than the one you are possessing now."

Ruby nodded. "If she can, she will possess a child. She is a child, Sam. She has never been anything else. A demon can possess every human they want, lest they carry protection against possession. It's just another proof that we were all human once, though the others don't want to see it. We keep possessing that which we once were. Lilith possesses little girls, I tend to possess young women. If need be, that can change. I did possess the old man after all, but it wasn't comfortable."

Ruby turned and looked at Bobby over her shoulder. "No offence."

"Bite me." Bobby replied gruffly.

Ruby rolled her eyes and looked back at Sam.

"You can't let appearances stop you, Sam. If you get the chance to kill Lilith, or to set her up for somebody else to kill, you cannot consider the little girl Lilith is possessing."

Sam knew that, but he also knew that it wasn't going to be as easy as Ruby made it sound.

"That still doesn't tell us how to find her."

"I told you I can."

"How? Look her up in the demon directory?"

Ruby chuckled. "Something like it. I have contacts, other demons who all aren't too keen on seeing Lilith gain more power either. And they can find out where she is without alerting her."

"And once you've found her, what's the plan? Sneak into her hideout and pull the colt out from underneath her pillow? Sounds like a great plan."

"Leave that to me, Sam. I can get you the colt, that's all you need to know."

"No. That's where you're mistaken. If I agree to do this with you, I want to know every detail. I want to know how, and I want to know what I'm letting myself in for."

Ruby got up from the chair and angrily started pacing in the narrow confines of the Devil's Trap. Finally, she shook her head and came to a stop right in front of Sam, watching him from narrowed eyes.

"Fine. Lilith still has the colt. In fact, she never lets it out of her sight. So once we know where she is, we draw her out."

Sam laughed and shook his head. "What, you want to set up a trap for her? And you expect her to fall for that?"

"It's the only chance we have. I don't particularly care whether or not you like it. We're only going to get one shot at this. It's our only chance to determine the conditions for meeting Lilith. If we confront her wherever it is that she's hiding out, we won't stand a chance. We need to draw her to a place where we can prepare for her arrival."

"And what makes you so sure that she'll come?"

Ruby smiled, and in the sliver of light from the bathroom her blue eyes looked grey and cold.

"Oh, she will come. If you're there, she'll definitely come."

* * *

The words of the exorcism rite that Sam begins to perform are the same ones that are often used on the show. They are quoted according to supernaturalwiki (dot) com, and since my three years of learning Latin lie long in the past, I hope I got it down right. All possible mistakes are mine.

Thanks for taking the time to read, and I'd appreciate it if you left me a review. Thanks a lot.


	10. Fight or Flight

Okay, so here you go with the next chapter.

Warning: This is getting a slight bit gory towards the end. Nothing that's not covered by the rating, I think, but for those of you who are a little more worried about all matters gory, the advice is to treat the end of the chapter with caution.

Also, there's a demon arguing her opinion about religion in this chapter. It's not meant to offend anybody. It is a demon, after all, and we're all watching a show called Supernatural. I just thought I'd let you know in advance.

Thanks again - as always - to Isis-SG1 for proof reading this for me, and letting me know what she thinks.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 9 – Fight or Flight**

Sam ran a hand through his hair in frustration at Ruby's words. It was the same old song to a different tune, and he was fed up with it. He was fed up with vague statements and allusions, he finally wanted some facts.

"What is it that makes Lilith so keen on killing me? Yellow Eye is dead, and even if he wasn't, I'd have never gone along with his plans anyway."

Ruby chuckled and shook her head. She was still standing right in front of Sam, separated only by the invisible boundary of the Devil's Trap on the ceiling.

"You still don't understand it, do you? The fact aside that you're a hunter and thusly ended up on top of Lilith's agenda anyway, she cannot let you live. It's not about what you'll do or won't do. It's about what you represent."

Sam leaned against the wall to his left and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"What do you mean?"

"I thought you knew what Azazel had planned for you."

"Yeah, harness my powers and lead the demon army in the war against humans, yadda, yadda. Great demonic plan with big holes in it."

"You have to see the bigger picture here Sam."

"I've got time. Enlighten me."

Ruby shook her head and sat down again.

"Actually, time is the one thing we don't have in abundance, but since I'm stuck here anyway, why not? I'll indulge you. Now, I guess I'm not up to date on what humans think your imaginary heaven to look like, but I guess it's all nice and organized. Regulated and calm, with nothing ever slipping out of control. So peaceful. Hell is chaos, Sam. If nobody keeps the angels in check in heaven, the worst thing that could happen is that they randomly spread the love. If demons have nobody to lead them, things get out of control very fast, and very bad."

"So what, you're telling me you don't have any hierarchies down below?"

Ruby smiled. "Oh, there are hierarchies. But those stem from demons exerting power over other demons. Pushing them aside, making them bid their will, having them work for them. Ruthlessly, just like you'd expect a demon to. But that's a hierarchy that developed over time, and it's shaky at best. There's no natural hierarchy in hell, no ruler who stands above them all."

Now that was interesting. "So what about the devil? And all that antichrist talk?"

Ruby shrugged. "Christian terminology. But I'm not saying we don't have any myths and legends, or that we don't have any beliefs. But what you call the devil – let's just say that nobody has seen him in a long time. He's a force of the time long before most demons who are in hell right now came into being."

Sam felt a smile steal across his face. "What, the devil is just a myth?"

"No. He's real. Nobody doubts that, at least nobody who's ever been to hell. But he's not an active force down below, at least not now. Or maybe he's pulling the strings in the background without anybody knowing about it. Doesn't matter. What matters is that he's not the boss patrolling the streets of hell to keep everybody in check. Nobody keeps anybody in check, which is why there is chaos down there in the first place."

"Listen Ruby, all that sounds fascinating and I'm really sorry that you don't come from a happy home, but tell me again what this has to do with why Lilith wants to kill me so badly?"

Ruby's face pulled into a grimace at Sam's words, but he didn't regret the taunting remark. Ruby herself had made more than one cruel remark about Dean's death, and Sam didn't care if she could take as well as she could give. And after a few moments, she shrugged Sam's remark off.

"It's all about what you represent, Sam. Believe it or not, we demons have our myths. It's an inherent human trait to believe in a higher power. To me it's just another sign of proof that we were all human once, but that's beside the point. One of our big myths is that one day, Lucifer is going to come back. Pretty much near the end of the world as you humans know it, but again – that's beside the point."

Ruby smiled a very fake smile.

"Right to the point is that without a big boss down there, there's a constant struggle for power. After all, nobody knows when Lucifer is going to come back – if he comes back at all. So in the meantime, everybody wants to keep Lucifer's throne warm while he's away. And no, I don't mean that literally. And for a while there, Azazel was the big shot. He had big plans. Good plans. A lot of demons were willing to follow him because they believed that his plan was the ultimate way to bring forth the final battle, the ultimate showdown against humanity that would bring back Lucifer."

"And Azazel's plans involved me."

Ruby nodded. "Atta boy. Even though 'involved' doesn't do his plans for you any justice. He blessed you, all the children like you, with powers most demons can't even begin to dream about. And he just handed those powers to you. The potential you've got slumbering inside you, it's scary. Azazel wanted to make you, a human, his first in command. It's a brilliant idea to have a powerful human leading the demon army in the glorious battle against human kind. He wanted you to help defeat your own. That should tell you just how powerful you could be if you only unleashed your powers. But then your brother blew Azazel away, and his demise left a big old hole in the power structure down below."

Ruby got up. "Enter Lilith. She's powerful, she's ruthless – even for a demon – and she really, really wants to become the next big leader down below. But she can't do that for as long as you're still walking around."

Sam laughed. "It's not as if I'm going to claim her position anytime soon."

"No. But there were plenty of demons willing to follow Azazel. Willing to follow _you_, Sam. And the only way that Lilith can get them if not on her side then at least under control is by proving that she's more powerful than you are. And there's only one way to do that."

"By killing me."

Ruby nodded with a smile. "Yes. The day that Devil's Gate opened was a very, very good day for Lilith. Not only did the Gate open for long enough to unleash a lot of demons, but also Azazel was out of the picture. Oh, and not to forget your brother."

Sam swallowed against his suddenly dry throat. "What about Dean?"

"Well, the downside was that he brought you back from the dead. Believe me that Lilith would much rather see you dead than alive. But he handed her the tool to easily rectify that on a silver platter."

"How's that?"

"His deal Sam. Dean set a deadline for taking himself out of the picture. All Lilith had to do was wait and hold on to her contract to get the double bonus – your brother's soul for eternal torment, and a clear path at getting rid of you. All she needed was to wait."

"If Lilith is truly so powerful, she could have taken me out at any point during that year. Why wait until Dean was gone?"

Ruby shrugged. "For one, I think you're underestimating your brother. It's a bitch trying to get through to you in the first place, and I should know. He's watching you like a bodyguard, a human wall trying to separate you from all evil in the world. Probably Lilith could have taken him out anyway, but why bother with these messy things if all she has to do is bide her time until you're alone? And Lilith had a lot of other things on her mind over the past twelve months. Taking charge over hell is not as easy as it might sound. She's been working a lot of different angles on this. Besides, what better way to finally get to kill you than right after Dean kicked the bucket? Your guard is down, and your pain and torment is making it so much more enjoyable. She was looking forward to the moment when Dean's deal was up. So now she's really pissed that she can't get to either you or Dean's soul."

Ruby cocked her head in the direction of the door suddenly, as if she had heard something. Bobby followed her gaze, then he went over towards the window and looked out through a gap between the blinds.

"Bobby?"

After a few seconds, the older man turned away from the window again.

"Nothing out there."

Ruby turned back towards Sam.

"Not yet. But we don't have much time."

"You keep saying that. I thought those hex-bags would keep Lilith from finding us?"

"Yes, they will. For a time. And right now it's not only Lilith who's searching for you, and hex-bags are no all purpose protection devices. Sooner or later the two of you will be found, especially if you stay in one place for too long."

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The problem was, Ruby was right. He didn't like to admit it, every fibre of his being was set dead against admitting it, but they needed help on this one. Help in finding Lilith, and in drawing her out. They had left nearly all their resources behind, and that included the device with which Bobby had located the demon two days ago. Lilith was not going to come after them personally, they had to find her. And they were quickly running out of time.

"What do you suggest we do?"

Ruby threw her hands in the air in a mock jubilant gesture. "Finally! I suggest that first of all, you let me out of this trap. Then I'll go and see what I can find out about Lilith's whereabouts, and about the demons trying to find you. Give me until noon, then I'll have some answers and we can start preparing."

Sam started pacing up and down in front of his bed, hand buried in his hair and eyes cast towards the floor as he thought about this. Freeing Ruby meant that she could help them. But it also meant they had to trust her. And Sam didn't like that part of this plan relied on trusting her.

"What do you say, Bobby?"

The older man was leaning against the wall near the door, looking worried. He shrugged at Sam's question.

"She's a demon, Sam. Demons lie, and demons will always use humans to their own ends. Even if they pretend to be telling the truth. But she helped us before, and right now I don't see any way of finding Lilith without her. All the equipment is back at the house."

Sam nodded, his brow drawn worriedly. He absolutely didn't like the idea. Absolutely not. But he had no choice.

Sam pulled up another chair to the Devil's Trap, getting ready to climb onto it to reach the ceiling. But before he did, he took a long look at Ruby until she was meeting his eyes.

"The moment I get the feeling that you're trying to screw with us, I'll send you back to hell without hesitation."

Ruby just smiled. "You do that, and at least Dean will have someone to keep him company."

Sam clenched his jaws so hard that he could feel the strain on his muscles, but he didn't answer the taunt. Instead, he put one foot down on the seat of the chair and pulled the knife out from his belt, but the before he could boost himself up to stand on the seat of the chair, there was the resounding sound of smashing glass behind Sam.

Ruby's eyes widened and her hand immediately went to her side where she normally carried the knife.

"Let me out of here Sam!"

"Bobby, the bathroom!"  
Bobby pulled two shotguns out from underneath the comforter of his bed. Grabbing them both, he tossed one of them towards Sam who caught it one-handed just as he climbed up on the chair. Bobby made move to climb over the beds towards the bathroom, but at that moment the window behind him exploded inwards and a shadowy figure threw itself at the older man, pulling him to the ground.

"Let me out Sam!"

Sam tore his eyes away from Bobby and quickly reached up. He pulled the blade of the knife through the fluorescent paint, breaking the circle around the devil's trap. Ruby was looking up at Sam, waiting for the moment when she'd be free. When the circle was broken she immediately threw herself at something behind Sam's back, something coming out of the bathroom. But whatever Ruby did, it was not fast enough. Sam felt something impact heavily with the chair he was still standing on. The impact threw him off balance and before he knew it he was falling, hurled through the air and heading straight towards the edge of the small table near the door.

Sam instinctively tried to shift, tried to take his head out of the line of impact, but his momentum was too big for him to avoid collision entirely. His shoulders and the back of his head impacted heavily with the table that collapsed under his weight. Right before Sam hit the floor, he heard the sound of a shotgun going off a few feet to his right.

Shotgun.

Bobby.

Still completely befuddled by his head smashing into the wood of the table, Sam scrambled to his feet. Bobby was to his left, from the corner of his eyes he saw him struggle with a young man. Bobby was pressed against the wall and the demon – because it had to be a demon, had one hand on Bobby's throat, crushing his windpipe, and the other hand poised to strike. The shotgun was lying discarded at Bobby's feet, the rock salt shells either empty or ineffective. Just as Sam looked, Bobby placed a well-aimed kick against one of the demon's knees, bringing him off balance and loosening the hold around his windpipe. Bobby might be gaining the upper hand in the fight again, but he needed a weapon to get rid of this demon.

Ruby was near the bathroom, locked in a fistfight with yet another demon, but there was a third one. A bull of a man, a bodybuilder if Sam had to venture a guess, climbing in through the smashed window. He kicked the overturned chair out of his way and headed straight towards Sam.

Blindly firing off a rock salt round in the direction of the approaching demon in the hope that it might buy him some time, Sam threw himself forward. He was still clutching the knife and the shotgun, but he needed one hand free so he shoved the knife into the shaft of his boot and reached for the bottle lying on the bed near him.

"Bobby!"

Sam unscrewed the cap of the bottle and randomly poured some of the holy water into the direction of the demon attacking his friend. He didn't see because he was already turning around, but he heard a shriek that told him he had hit his aim. He just needed to buy enough time for that demon to let go of Bobby and give the other man a chance to reach for his own bottle of holy water.

Sam turned, but it was too late. He only had a split second's warning as his eyes registered the fist soaring towards his face, but before his brain had the chance to register the message the left side of his face exploded in pain, bright stars flittered across his vision and he was thrown back against the wall. His grip slackened, and the bottle of holy water dropped to the ground.

Damn.

Again, he saw the first come towards his face, but this time he saw it early enough. Instinctively, Sam moved to the side, just enough to avoid being hit. He reached out, grabbed the demon's wrist with both his hands and with a roll of his entire body underneath the arm twisted it to the side and back, nearly far enough to dislocate it.

But if there was any pain from that, the demon didn't let it show. With a roar he shook himself, dislodging Sam like an animal trying to get rid of an unwanted parasite. Sam had no chance but to let go, and he immediately ducked and reached for the bottle with holy water. Some of it had spilled out, a dark stain on the ugly grey motel carpet, but there was some holy water left in the bottle.

Sam was no longer thinking before he acted.

There was no time to think. It was time to let his instincts guide his actions, and his instincts had been honed through years of hunting.

Sam grabbed the bottle and tilted it so that the rest of the holy water poured out into the direction of the huge guy who was attacking him. It splashed right into his face, and the guy stopped mid-charge, bringing up his hands to cover his face and eyes. Sam saw the vapour coming off the places where the holy water had touched the skin, saw the demon covering its eyes, and Sam seized his chance.

The holy water might hurt the demon now, but it wouldn't stop him for long.

Dropping the shotgun he was still clutching, Sam pulled the knife out of his boot and leaped forward blindly, the hand with the knife raised and ready to strike. Sam crashed into the demon and without thinking he brought down the knife, stabbing it through the soft skin on the side of the bulky man's throat.

There was an unearthly scream and an electrical charge seemed to run through the man in front of him. Shuddering, shaking and glowing from within he twitched for a few endless seconds, then a weak sound of pain that could have been an exhale or not escaped his lips and he sank to the floor in a boneless heap. Sam pulled the knife out of the dead man's neck and turned around.

Ruby was nowhere to be seen, but there were shadows moving in the bathroom and the definite sound of fighting there. And Bobby was still battling the other demon, just a few feet away from Sam.

The older man was bleeding from a nasty gash just above his eyebrow, blood running into his left eye and obscuring his vision, but he was still fighting back, still trying to hold off the demon in front of him. The bottle with holy water was lying empty and discarded in a corner, and even if the shotgun would have helped Bobby against the demon it was lying too far away for him to reach. Sam didn't think about it, his legs were moving automatically over towards his old family friend. But right before he reached the two, the demon grabbed Bobby by the front of his shirt and threw him straight across the room. There was a resounding crash followed by a dull thud as Bobby's head collided with the wall and he sank to the floor.

Sam had nearly reached the demon when it suddenly turned towards him, and with a detached fascination Sam watched the knife fall from his grasp. For a moment he wondered how that had happened, but then the pain set in. It was a dull, throbbing pain in his right hand and the entire limb felt suddenly heavy and numb, as if it wouldn't move upon his command even if the tried.

Sam hadn't even seen the blow against his arm that had sent the knife flying, and he didn't really see the next blow in time, either. This one went straight into his solar plexus, and it drove the breath from his lungs and made him double over in pain. Sam knew that it was a mistake to expose his back and neck towards an attacker, but bending over was the only thing his body was capable of after that blow to his stomach. No amount of training and honing of skills could have stopped his body's natural reaction to pain and breathlessness – doubling over.

Sam felt the jab to his neck coming a split second before it hit him, and then he was on the floor, the taste of bile and copper in his mouth, breathing hard against the pain in his stomach and arm. And before he knew it the demon was above him, was straddling him and had his hands around Sam's throat, cutting off the precious little air he could suck into his lungs.

With a primal sound somewhere between pain and outrage, Sam tried to wriggle out of the grip, tried to stop the demon from choking him to death, but he couldn't move. The weight of the demon effectively stopped him from moving, and his right arm was behaving awkwardly, reactions delayed to the orders the brain was sending.

The knife was lying just a foot away. Too far even if he stretched, but if he got a little leeway, if he could only loosen the demon's hold on him a little he might have a chance at getting to the knife…

Black spots were starting to dance across his vision as Sam's hands desperately clawed and reached around on the carpet, trying to get a hold of anything that would help him shrug off the demon on top of him.

And then his left hand found a soaking wet spot on the carpet. Holy water that had spilled during Bobby's previous struggles with the demon. At least Sam hoped so, and he clung to the faint hope that if this was blood, it should be warmer.

Spilled holy water on the carpet wasn't going to help him much, but Sam could feel himself blackening out already, so he swiped his fingers through the soaked spot on the carpet and then brought up his hand. In a desperate, last attempt Sam did the only thing he could think of – he stabbed his finger into the only vulnerable part of the demon within his reach: his eye.

It was a nauseating experience to feel his finger press into the man's eyeball, to feel something give way that shouldn't, but there was no time to think about that. The demon roared in pain and flinched back, and suddenly the hands were gone from Sam's throat and he could breathe again – wheezing breaths, but they brought precious oxygen into his lungs.

With the demon's weight no longer pressing him down, Sam tried to scoot away, just a few inches, until the tips of his fingers could close around the hilt of the knife. But his right hand still felt numb, and as the knife was finally within reach it took him two tries to close his hand around the hilt and pull it towards himself.

The demon was holding one hand in front of his eye, blood seeping out from between his fingers. With his free hand he fisted Sam's shirt and pulled him up, and for a horrible split second Sam felt the fingers of his injured right hand open and the knife slide from his grasp. Knowing that if he let go of the knife now, he was as good as dead, Sam twisted in the demon's grasp until he could reach the ground with his left hand. His fingers closed around empty air, sending another jolt of adrenaline through his system, but then he suddenly felt the reassuring cool handle of the knife and wrapped his fingers around it.

In one movement he turned back around and swung the knife along, not caring where it hit. Not as long as it hit.

And he struck true. Dumb luck, fate, something must have intervened because Sam felt the knife hit something solid, and then he felt how it broke through the solid surface and buried itself in the young man's body.

Again, it was the same display that Sam had seen only a few minutes ago – the twitching and jostling as if somebody had connected the man to a live wire, the strange flashes that seemed to lighten up his head and chest from the inside until the man's eyes rolled back in his head and he sank to the ground, right on top of Sam.

With a groan, a lot of grunts and even more effort Sam freed himself of the dead weight that had fallen atop of him and scrambled to his feet. He was still breathing hard, and he had the feeling that he didn't get enough air in through his windpipe. His throat was sore, he ached in all possible places and his vision was a little blurry, though he could not tell whether that was from the impact with the table earlier or from the lack of oxygen.

Knife still held tightly in his left hand, Sam turned to survey the situation in the room. Judged by the sounds coming from the bathroom, there was still at least one demon left, but the bedroom at least was empty.

"Bobby!"

The older hunter was lying at the foot of the wall on the other side of the room, right next to the bathroom door. His face was bloody from the gash above his eyebrow and he looked just like he had been roughed up badly by a demon. But he was moving at least, groaning and trying to get back to his feet with one hand pressed against his head.

"Wait, Bobby."

Sam stepped over the body of the demon in front of him and made move to cross the room towards his fallen friend.

There was no warning.

No sign or sound that could have alerted Sam.

The moment he passed the broken window, something detached itself from the dark shadows outside and flung itself through the opening right at Sam. The impact threw him off balance, he was jostled against the nearby bed and nearly tumbled over.

Sam couldn't do anything for the split second that it took him to find out which way was up and which was down. When he finally felt that the ground beneath his feet had stopped moving and turned around, all he saw was a pair of entirely black eyes staring at him from just a few inches away.

Then a searing pain shot through his body, as if somebody had slashed him open form his sternum down to his navel and was now groping around in his intestines. Sam wanted to move his arms, to cover the hurting spot with his hands; he wanted to look down and see what had been done to him. He needed to know where the pain came from. But he couldn't move a muscle, and the last thing he saw was how the face in front of him turned into the leering parody of a smile.

Then came the darkness.

* * *

So, that was the weekend update. The next chapter is finished and should be up by Sunday when I come back to town. Thanks for reading, and as always, reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks.


	11. Heaven and Hell and In Between

Warning: There's more arguing about some basic religious beliefs in this chapter. Far more serious than in the last. It is not meant to offend anybody with strong religious beliefs. In fact, I do count myself amongst those. It isn't meant to deny anything that's part of Christian religion. It is meant as a storytelling device that was important for this particular part of the story, and for the particular person it concerns. And since we're all here because we love the show Supernatural with all its premises, I hope not to offend anybody with this chapter.

I don't think anything in this chapter is serious enough to offend. There's no spreading of a general thesis on what's true about religion and what not. I'm just continuing something about a character that started in the season 2 episode "Houses of the Holy".

But I thought a warning was in order since there's nothing to heat people up than arguing religion.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 10 – ****Heaven and Hell and In Between**

_"Do you believe in God, Dean? I'd be surprised if you did."_

_"I don't know. I'd like to."_

(Sin City, Season 3)

"Where am I?"

_Oh, lucid now, are we?_

"What's that supposed to mean?"

_It means that I'm glad you're finally done with the weeping and the crying out for people who can't_ _help you right now._

"What people?"

A chuckle.

_Oh, you forgot. You vowed to yourself not to forget, remember? You so desperately wanted to cling to those few memories you had left because you were hoping that they would let you keep at least a few fragments of your humanity. Pathetic. I'm glad you're rid of that now. It made you so pitiable._

"What are you talking about? Where am I?"

_Now that's a good question – I'm so glad you're finally catching up to the important points._

"Who are you?"

_Don't strain yourself. Even if I explained to you, you wouldn't understand. So let's just say I'm the voice of reason in the back of your head._

"What, so now I'm talking to myself? I'm frigging nowhere and I'm arguing with myself? That's just great."

Another chuckle.

_Yes, you always did have a low opinion of yourself. I shouldn't be surprised that this didn't change with death._

"So…I'm dead?"

_In a way._

"How the hell can I be dead 'in a way'? Either I'm dead or I'm not!"

_Well, in your case things are a little more complicated. A lot of exceptions, a lot of bending the rules so far that it's a small surprise they don't break from the strain. But you've touched a very interesting point there._

"Oh, and which would that be?"

_Hell._

"What the…I'm in hell? This here, this dark-nothing-with-disembodied-voices-talking-to-me-scenario is hell?"

_No._

"Then what the fuck are you talking about?"

_You really don't remember anything, do you? You've been to hell. Not for long, but even a minute in hell is enough to taint a soul for a lifetime. You will remember in time, and then you'll wish you woul__dn't. But that's beside the point now._

"Oh, now that makes sense. First hell's the important point, give the boy a cookie because he immediately got it, and then it's beside the point? If you're the voice in the back of my head, my head is one screwed up place to be."

No chuckle this time, but laughter.

_No memories, but that assessment is actually not too far off the truth. But as I said, that's not impo__rtant. It's not important that you think your head is a screwed up place, what is important is that you've been to hell. And you can't go back. Under no circumstances can you go to hell again._

"Well, you won't hear any disagreement from my side. I'm not that keen on going to hell either."

_But you need to stop it from happening._

"Sure. Stop myself from going to hell. Okey-dokey. Care to elaborate a little more on that? Like – how in blazes am I supposed to do this? How do I stop myself from going back to hell? And by the way, if I went to hell and came back, where am I now?"

_You're in the limbo._

"The limbo. Like party on the beach, dancing beneath low sticks, that kind of limbo? Because I gotta tell you, if that's what this is, the party really sucks."

_Don't pretend to be dumber than you actually are. The limbo. Neither here nor there. The place where souls go when they can't move on._

"Souls who can't move on try to kill me on a regular basis. They're in the limbo too?"

_No. That's something different. You're not an angry spirit, you didn't stay behind. You moved on into the great between, my friend._

Now it was his turn to laugh.

"What, the verdict is still out on whether I might get a ticket to heaven?"

_Since when do you believe in heaven? I thought for you it was that seeing meant believing. You've only ever seen evil and __thusly you don't believe in the greater good. What changed?_

"Who said anything changed?"

_You were the one who mentioned heaven. Not me._

"Hey, if you're the voice in the back of my head, we're in this together."

_No we're not. So, what changed?_

"Nothing."

_That means you don't believe in heaven. Or angels. Or anything. Just in evil._

"Maybe I did do some thinking."

_Always a dangerous thing._

"Hey, I don't need to sit here and get insulted by the voice in my head!"

_Oh, I'm sorry. Please, do continue._

"No."

_Stubborn, are we? Well, have it your way. I know the answer anyway._

"Great, now I've got an omniscient voice in the back of my head."

_Not that you can do anything against it.__ I know why you don't believe in heaven. And like almost everything else in your life, it roots back in anger. Somebody you loved very much made you believe in heaven, and angels, and the good things in life. And then that person was taken away from you, brutally ripped right out of your heart, and at that moment you lost your beliefs. You lost your ability to believe in the greater good of all that's happening. You could no longer believe that there is some divine good out there because from that moment on, all you ever saw was evil. All that ever happened to you was evil._

_But isn't the truth that you want to believe? That you want to have that unlimited faith in something, the belief that whatever fucked up evil is happening around you and to you, there is a greater purpose behind it? Don't you envy those who have that kind of faith, because it makes their lives so much easier to bear? Because you cannot bear the weight of all the evil, of all the struggles without reprieve anymore, and you don't have any faith to lighten your load. Because for you, seeing is believing._

_You had that faith once, but you lost it because you lost something good. You lost your faith because you couldn't see the good things anymore._

_Your faith was strong, but you needed proof – and that's what broke you._

"What, we're going to break out the guitars now and sing Hallelujah?"

_I'm using words that you can relate to. Things you understand._

"And why are you telling me all this? And while we're talking about it, why is it that you know so much about me, and I have no frigging memories at all? If you're just a part of my head, I should know too."

_That's because you want to forget._

"No, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you there. I really, really want to remember."

_That you did. But then you remembered the pain. And you didn't want to remember anymore.__ That's what hell does to people._

"Is there a point to all this? Because while I'm still not so sure about this whole limbo thing, I'm sure that I could have something better to do. So what's all that talk about hell and heaven about? You want to turn me into a believer?"

_Aren't you already?_

"What's that supposed to mean? Only now you told me that I stopped believing in heaven a long time ago."

_That's what you say. But you want to believe, don't you?_

"Does it matter?"

_Maybe._

"Great. Why can't you be a bit more cryptic?"

_You've always denied it, but it's there, right? Hell is real, evil is real. But can it exist without its cou__nterpart? Can hell exist without heaven? Doesn't every thesis need an antithesis? If there's demons, doesn't that mean that there's angels too? If there is or was an antichrist, what does that say about the existence of Jesus? If there's the devil, does that mean there's also a God?"_

"That thing about being more cryptic was sarcastic. I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

_I'm just trying to get a few things straight._

"You're trying to tell me that if there's a hell, there's also a heaven."

_I'm just telling you what you believe. Or what you want to believe, deep down__ inside._

"So I want to believe in heaven. Right. If you say so. And that matters because?"

_That matters because you can't rely on that. What if I tell you that hell is real, that it has always been real__? It has existed since the dawn of mankind, long before religion invented the concept of heaven to counterbalance evil, to give people something to believe in. What if I tell you that ever since the first human gave up his precious soul to the darkness, hell has been a constant companion of mankind, a vicious cycle of human souls turning into demons who then in turn start collecting even more souls into hell?_

_Hell has been there for a long time, it existed long before people invented a name for it. People knew that there was evil in this world and beyond, and they needed to name it. So they named it hell. And heaven is nothing but an attempt at compensating. A typically human attempt at compensating. There's so much evil brought into this world, so much darkness that's coming from the pits down below, the human mind needed to invent the idea of a better place. It needed the belief that there was a way to avoid eternal torment, that if there was something as horribly evil as hell, there had to be something good to balance it. Something that gives humanity a choice. Live a bad life and make mistakes and you end up in hell, but live a good life and you'll go to heaven. What I'm trying to tell you is that heaven is nothing but a human invention. A hope._

"Well, that's great. Thanks for the theological enlightenment. If I ever get out of this limbo thing, I'll make sure to spread the word."

_You're missing the point. Again._

"Maybe that's because you don't make it clear. Hell exists, I've been there but came back, and I can't go back there, under no circumstances. Right. So what's the theological discourse all about?"

_It isn't about whether or not there is a heaven. It's all about the belief._

"What so I'm supposed to believe in heaven even though you just told me that it's not real?"

_Not you. This isn't about what you believe._

"Come again?"

_It's about what humans believe. What humans do for their beliefs. Withstanding temptation, fo__llowing the commandments, doing good deeds, helping others – a lot of people do just that because of their beliefs. A lot of souls don't succumb to the darkness of hell because of what people believe. So it doesn't matter whether or not there's a heaven. What matters is that people believe in it. If people believe in something good beyond this world, they will keep on believing in something good in this world. And they'll keep fighting for it._

_That's what matters._

"So the philosophical message is that if you believe in good things you'll do good things? You could do with some lessons in nutshelling. Or maybe I could, seeing that you're just a voice in my head."

_As I said, I'm not telling you something you don't already know. I'm just pointing out how important this is. Right now you're in the limbo, in between where you can't do or change anything. But that won't last. You can't stay here forever._

"Well, just show me to the door. I'm more than ready to leave."

_No you're not._

"Great."

_Not yet. And until then, there's two things you need to keep on the forefront of your mind. Two things you absolutely cannot forget._

"Like I forgot everything else, you mean."

_You cannot stop fighting. That's the first and most important thing. If all goes well and you'll leave here by the right door, you'll be given a second chance. It is vital that you don't stop fighting. There's a war out __there, and if you don't keep fighting that war it will be lost. Cling to whatever belief you find, the belief in some fragment of good that still exists, whatever it takes for you to believe. But you need to keep fighting this war. You need to believe that there is a way of winning this war, and that it's worth winning this war._

"Why me?"  
_Because you have a role to play. An important role. And you know that you can't stop fighting until you've fulfilled that role._

"Right now I don't know anything."

_You will remember. If all goes well you will remember._

"Okay. Keep on fighting. Should be easy enough to remember. So what's the second thing?"

_There was a moment of silence._

"Hey, you still there? What's the second thing?"

_You cannot go back to hell._

"Okay. Think I can do that."

_You don't know what you're talking about. Right now it's out of your hands. Right now all that's kee__ping you out of hell is the strength of another. But that safety net won't last forever. And if that safety net fails, you will have to fight. You have to scream and claw and bite and fight, whatever it takes, but you cannot go back to hell._

"And how do I do that? Doesn't sound as if there was much I could really do about it."

_Not much. But one thing, and maybe that's enough._

"What?"

_You must remember who you are._

He very nearly laughed.

"Dude, I've got no frigging idea who I am. If the omniscient voice in the back of my head – which would be you, by the way – has no idea who I am, then that part of your plan is not going to work out so well. At least give me a name to work with."

_Names aren't what matters. You need to remember who you are. What __makes you the person you are. Or were._

"Ah, getting philosophical again."

_No. But I want you to listen to me, and listen good._

"Right. Promise you'll make sense this time?"

_I've been making sense the whole time. It was you who refused to see it._

"So who am I?"

_You're a soldier. You're a fighter. You're a son, and an orphan. You're a survivor. You're a protector and the last line of defence for those you love. You're a brother. And you're a soul worth saving._

"That's what you want me to remember? What about my frigging name?"

_I told you, names don't matter. Names come and go. What I just told you, t__hat's what you need to remember. That's what shapes the person you once were. If you forget that, you forget who you are. And then you'll be lost._

"Why are you telling me all this?"

_Are you going to remember what I just told you?_

"Why…"

_Are you going to remember?_

"Yes, yes I'll remember. And now answer my damn question. Why are you telling me all this?"

_Remember the safety net I was talking about? The one that's keeping you out of hell?_

"Yes. What about it?"

_It's about to fail._

And as those words were still echoing in his head, white hot pain engulfed his entire being and he felt himself fall into the darkness.

* * *

"_Your faith was strong but you needed proof_" is a line from the song "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley. I guess my story now officially has a soundtrack – and it could be worse. I love the song.

Thanks for reading, and if you take the time to drop me a review and tell me what you think about it, I'd be really grateful for it. Thanks.


	12. A Change in Plans

This one took a bit longer to get out. I'm sorry, but real life intervened. I hope it helps that it's a really long chapter you're getting, and that it resolves any cliffhanger residue that might still be lingering aorund.

Spoilers ahead for "Malleus Maleficarum" and "Crossroad Blues", but those are minor spoilers at best.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 11 – A Change in Plans**

Dean.

That was the first thing he saw.

Dean.

Dean standing in a motel parking lot – any motel parking lot because in reality, they all looked the same. Dean was standing on the driver's side of the Impala, forearms resting on the shiny black roof of the car, looking across it at Sam. His pose was relaxed, entirely at ease with himself and his surroundings. It was a pose Sam hadn't seen often in his brother, not to this degree. Normally, there was always a much stronger wary note shining through in every movement and gesture. Normally, Dean was prepared for trouble, for an attack, at any given time. But not now. Dean had one eyebrow cocked expectantly, and a slight grin was playing around the corners of his mouth.

It was breathtaking how normal it looked.

How _right_.

Dean was wearing his leather jacket, the one that had been their father's once, just like the car, the jacket that had become so essentially _Dean_ over the past years since it had been passed on – again, just like the car. The collar of the jacket was turned up against Dean's neck the same way it always was, the way that made Sam want to reach out and straighten it, and the jacket was bunching up over Dean's shoulders a little from how he was leaning over the roof of the car.

Dean was looking straight towards Sam, and after a few seconds a frown settled on his face as if there was something wrong. As the frown deepened, he opened his mouth. The sound of Dean's voice was swallowed long before the words reached Sam's ears, but he heard his brother's words resound inside his head anyway. Sam didn't need to hear the words to know what Dean was going to say. He could read the words from Dean's lips, could see the joyful twinkle in Dean's eyes, that spark of anticipation that was always there when they were on a lead, when a hunt was about to start. He knew what Dean was saying.

_Come on, Sam!_

And Sam didn't need any more urging.

His feet were moving before Dean was finished calling out for him. He was running, hurrying towards his brother, his mind set on one task alone: getting to Dean. Sam needed to reach his brother, needed to touch him, hear and see and _feel_ that Dean was all right because in the back of his mind there was this voice that told Sam that for some reason, this could not be true. Dean could not be all right.

So Sam needed to make sure.

But while his feet were moving, while his whole body was going through the motion, Sam didn't seem to get any closer to Dean. Sam was running, he was panting from the exertion, but he didn't make any ground. The parking lot was like an endless stretch of asphalt that had one task alone – keeping him away from his brother.

"Dean!"

Sam yelled his brother's name between two panted breaths, but the sound of his voice wasn't picked up by the air between them.

"Dean, wait!"

Dean straightened up from his leaning position over the car and raised his hands in a silent question.

_What's keeping you, Sam? We need to get going._

"I'm coming, Dean! Wait!"

But he was still just as far away from his brother as he had been minutes before. Sam doubled his speed, forced his feet into the asphalt with more pressure, he waved his arms in a desperate attempt to push himself off of thin air. But he wasn't moving forward.

Dean looked at his watch, tapping the surface with the index finger of his right hand.

_We don't have time._

"Dean!"

Dean looked into Sam's direction for a few more seconds, then a disappointed sadness settled on his face and he shrugged. He opened the driver's side door of the Impala with a creak that sent icy tendrils of fear down Sam's spine.

No!

Please don't drive away.

Please don't leave me.

Don't leave me.

Not again.

Please.

Don't.

"Dean!"

But Dean was no longer looking at him. He ducked his head and got into the driver's seat of the car.

"Wait! Dean!"

The Impala' roared to life, the vibrations of the powerful engine so clear that Sam felt them in every muscle of his body. Dean revved the engine once, and in a cloud of dust and gravel he accelerated and drove off the parking lot. Sam felt something tighten in his chest and despite the fact that he couldn't seem to move an inch he struggled to run harder and faster.

"No! Dean, wait for me! Dean!"

But there was no flashing of break lights. No hesitation. Nothing. Dean was in the car, and he drove off without Sam. A few seconds later the Impala vanished from sight, and Sam stopped running. Falling to his knees, he could no longer breathe. He was still panting against the breathlessness from his run, and against that iron band of pain and betrayal that had tightened around his chest the moment his brother had driven off without him.

"Dean!"

It couldn't be true. Dean wouldn't leave him behind. He'd never go on a hunt alone. They were in this together, they were a team, this was their life. They might need their time away from each other – minutes, maybe hours at a time – but it was an unspoken rule that they didn't leave each other behind.

"Dean!"

They never left each other behind.

Dean would never leave him behind.

"Dean!"

"Sam!"

That one word registered in his brain, and suddenly there were hands on his shoulders. At the touch, Sam tried to sit up.

The tight feeling around his chest turned into searing pain as he moved. Black and white spots danced around on the back of his suddenly closed eyelids and his breath got stuck somewhere between his mouth and his lung.

Gosh, it hurt.

It hurt just as badly as a knife to the gut, or a bullet tearing through flesh and muscle.

Or Dean driving off without him.

But no, this was a physical pain, not the painful feeling of betrayal. Purely the physical reminder of an attack. But Sam didn't remember being attacked. Dean wouldn't have left him alone. Not if there was danger.

"Sam, you need to take it slowly. Come on kid, lie back down."

He hadn't been lying down. He had been in the parking lot with Dean. He had been standing, and running, but he hadn't been lying down.

"Sam, look at me. Open your eyes!"

Yeah, a lot easier said than done. It felt as if his eyelids were being weighed down, but finally he managed to crack his eyes open just a little bit. And when he saw where he was, he froze, his breath caught in his throat, and he slowly blinked until everything came into a clearer view.

He wasn't in a motel parking lot somewhere in the endless expanse of country between Florida and California. He wasn't outside at all. He was in a room, a dimly lit room with curtains in front of the windows which were blocking out the sunlight coming in from outside. It was a motel room.

How Sam knew he couldn't tell, but spending his past years on the road the way he had done, he simply knew. It had the feeling of a motel room, the looks and smells of a motel room. But it wasn't the motel room he remembered being in last, the one where they had trapped Ruby before the demons had attacked them.

Sam was lying on one of the two beds in the motel room. Or rather, he was half-lying, half-sitting up on the bed, his body weight supported on his right hand. Bobby was leaning over him, both hands on Sam's shoulders in an attempt to keep him from sitting up. Once his eyes settled on the older hunter, Sam relaxed marginally. If Bobby was there, it was all right. Bobby could tell him what was going on.

"Bobby?"

"Don't try to sit up yet, Sam. Lie back down."

Sam frowned, but he found that it required too much strength to remain in this position, so he slowly let himself sink down onto the mattress again. Bobby kept his hands on Sam's shoulders to help him ease back down, but even so the movement sent a renewed wave of pain through Sam's chest and abdomen. He couldn't help but sigh in relief when his back finally sank into the mattress and Bobby pushed another pillow behind his head to make him more comfortable.

It was only then that Sam realized that he was clutching the pendant around his neck in a dead grip in his left hand. Bobby followed his gaze and shrugged with a slight smile.

"You've been clinging to that pendant for hours now. There was no way to make you let go of it, so I stopped trying."

Hours. Sam wondered vaguely for how long he had been out cold. He hoped it had only been a few hours, not more. Hopefully not days. They didn't have time to lose. Not a few hours, and especially not days.

"What happened?"

Bobby grunted something and, much to Sam's surprise, started tugging at Sam's shirt. Sam immediately put a hand on the hem of his shirt to stop the movement.

"What are you doing?"

"You're hurt. I need to take a look that you didn't make it worse with all the shifting around."

Sam frowned in confusion, but he stopped resisting Bobby's attempts at dislodging his shirt. He was confused, to say the least. He didn't remember being hurt, not really. Last he remembered they had been in that motel room, trying to fight off the demons. And then…nothing. A lot of fuzzy things, but no real memory. But as he watched Bobby tug at his shirt, he realized that it was a different t-shirt than the one he last remembered wearing. So something must have happened, because he didn't remember changing.

"What happened? Last I remember you got smashed into a wall."

"Yeah. There was a fourth demon hiding outside. He got you as you passed the window. Did something to you, too."

"What?"

Bobby shook his head. "I don't know, really. But he tore you up pretty bad. The way you were bleeding…"

Bobby let his voice trail off and carefully pulled Sam's shirt up to his neck. Propped up on the additional pillow, Sam looked down at his own chest over the bunched up shirt. But before he even had the chance to get a good look, the smell assaulted his nostrils and he gagged.

"God, what is that?"

Bobby smiled. "If it's any consolation, it's not your wound that smells like that."

Sam took a few short, panted breaths through his mouth until he had the feeling of nausea under control. The smell really was awful. It smelled rotten somehow, like decay. Not a smell he liked to associate with his own body. Not at all.

Once he had gotten past the smell, Sam drew a deep breath through his mouth and looked down at his chest, expecting the worst. If it already smelled this bad, how could it possibly look? But despite the pain and the smell, it didn't look as bad as Sam had feared. There was a gash there, running pretty much vertically down his chest right over his sternum, ending a few inches above his navel. It didn't look good, admittedly. But it also didn't look life-threatening to Sam. He had dealt with worse wounds in the past, and he had the scars to prove it.

But what surprised and also shocked him was that despite the gash's length and depth, there were no stitches in sight. Instead, a greenish-brown substance was smeared into and around the wound. That would be the source of the smell, at least if Bobby was to be believed and it really didn't come from the wound as such.

"What happened?"

Maybe three times was the charm. Maybe now he'd finally get a halfway coherent answer out of Bobby, other than the fact that a demon attacked him. The older hunter carefully pulled the shirt back down.

"I'll tell you, if you promise to keep lying down for a little while longer."

"Okay."

It wasn't as if Sam had to go anywhere for an urgent appointment. Not before he understood what was going on here.

"I was still a bit fuzzy when that demon got to you. Damn thing didn't waste any time getting into a fistfight, either, but instead went straight down to business. I heard you scream, and then all I saw was blood soaking your shirt. By the time I had scrambled up from the floor, Ruby came storming out of the bathroom. She grabbed the knife you had dropped and made short work of the demon while it was still busy trying to kill you."

"What about the demon in the bathroom?"

"She got rid of that one, too. Not a pretty sight, I can tell you."

"Without the knife?"

Bobby nodded. "Yeah, without the knife. She didn't kill it, I guess. But whatever she did was enough for that demon to leave the body."

It seemed that even with Sam unconscious, Ruby had been playing her cards close to her chest. Sam could hardly imagine a demon exorcising another demon, but seemingly Ruby had found another way of making a demon ready and willing to leave the human body it was possessing. It was an interesting thought to ponder.

"What happened then?"

"You were about to bleed out, that's what happened."

Sam frowned and looked down at his chest again, as if he could re-examine the wound there even with the t-shirt blocking it from view.

"While it doesn't look nice, that wound also doesn't look as if it was life-threatening."

"Yeah, now it does not. Sam, to be honest I have no idea what happened. Ruby had a small bag with her, and she took out a jar with that greenish stuff and started smearing it onto your wound. It stopped bleeding, so I wasn't going to stop her. Saved your life."

Sam swallowed hard. Being alive was one thing, being covered in demonic…slime was another thing entirely.

"You let her do some demon mumbo-jumbo with me?"

Bobby actually laughed and shook his head. "No kid. I didn't. That there on your chest is a purely Wiccan remedy. It might smell like shit, but it's doing its job. Seems like that clingy demon girl really knows her stuff."  
Sam remembered what Ruby had told them, back in Massachusetts when he and Dean had broken up that coven and revealed the demon leading those women for what it was.

"She said she was a witch."

Bobby only shrugged. "Figures. I've never known a demon to bother with poultices and spellwork like that. They don't really have any need for that. What worries me is that she came prepared, just as if she knew she was going to need the stuff."

Inwardly, Sam was a little worried about that, as well. "Yeah. How big are the chances that she was packing that stuff just in case?"

Bobby laughed. "I'm not so sure I want to contemplate the odds of that."

"So Ruby stopped the bleeding with that foul smelling slime. That doesn't explain what happened next, or where we are."

"Well, once you had stopped bleeding, we packed you in the car and got the hell out of there. There was no time for cleanup, and I for one wanted to be far away by the time maid found four dead bodies in our room. And the chances were too big that somebody had heard the fight."

"Ruby actually went with us?"

Bobby nodded. "Yes. To make sure that you weren't going to start bleeding to death again as she said, but for what it's worth I believe that's bull. A witch who knows her stuff well enough to produce such a concoction knows that it works. It'll take more than a little Wiccan wizardry to make me trust her. But there wasn't exactly much time for debate or travelling arrangements, so we drove off. And she didn't try to steer me anywhere, just sat in the passenger seat and stared out the window."

Sam chuckled. "What, the two of you didn't chat at all?"

"I'm not chatting with no demon, kid. It's all lies and half-truths anyway, and I'm too old to waste my time trying to figure out which is which. I just drove for a couple of hours, then got us another motel. Ruby left not long after we checked in, said she'd be back this evening."

"Where did she go?"

Bobby raised his eyebrows and shoulders simultaneously in a double shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine, Sam. We'll have to wait for her to come back. If she comes back. We can't stay here for too long, but we need to wait out another few hours, give your chest some time to get better."

Sam frowned. "What, that stuff is actually healing the wound?"

"Don't know what it does exactly. Or how it works. But it's possible. All I know is that it looks a lot better than it did just a few hours ago. So either your body is suddenly healing faster, or that stuff is working."

"How do you know that it's not doing something else, as well?"

"What, like curse you?"

Sam nodded, wondering why Bobby didn't seem to be overly worried when it was such an obvious concern to him. But the older man only shook his head.

"That's not how witchcraft works, Sam. The stuff is obviously healing you, or at least helping you heal. That makes it white magic. Good magic. Can't mix that up with dark magic and curses. Witchcraft is pretty simple in that regard. It's either or. You can't have both at the same time. Though I don't doubt for one moment that Ruby is capable of some pretty dark stuff. But that poultice isn't it."

"You sure?"

"As sure as I can be, I guess."

It wasn't absolute certainty, but if it was enough for Bobby then Sam guessed it was enough for him.

"So where are we now?"

"Peoria."

Sam frowned as he traced their steps on the mental map of the US that was always present in his mind. If there was one thing to be said about his life on the road, then it was that his knowledge about American geography had always been good. And if they were in Peoria now then they hadn't really gotten much farther away from Sioux City. They were in fact even a little bit closer to their starting point than they had been before.

"We circled back?"

Bobby shrugged. "I figured it didn't matter much where we were going. There are demons after us, and they don't exactly rely on public transport to get to us. So whether or not we're going to get farther away from Sioux City doesn't matter much."

It made sense. It wasn't a comforting knowledge by a long shot, but it made sense. That at least was something.

"How long was I out?"

"A bit more than half a day. We drove for most of the night, checked in here in the early morning hours. Now it's a little past noon."

So they had lost half a day, a bit more than that. It could have been worse, Sam guessed, but still he didn't like it. He could have spent that time doing research, trying to check on what Ruby had told them, trying o figure out a way how to get rid of Lilith. But maybe he should be grateful. He had gotten more than twelve hours of sleep. Or rather, twelve hours of enforced rest. That should be able to keep him going for a while. And at least there had been no nightmares. No hellhounds, no memories, and the image of Dean in his dream had not been the one of his brother after he had been mauled by the hellhound. In his dream, Dean had been smiling, had been looking alive. Even though he had left Sam, he had seemed fine. Sam should be grateful for that.

Sam shifted carefully on the bed, levering himself up a little straighter so that he could get a better look around the room. It was just another ordinary motel room, just like the hundreds of motel rooms Sam had stayed in before. Nothing hinted at the fact that they were in Peoria.

Sam was lying on the bed farthest from the door. The room's small bathroom was going off to Sam's left, and straight ahead was a small sitting area with an old Formica table and two chairs which looked rickety at best. The second bed in the room looked rumpled, so at least Bobby seemed to have gotten some rest as well during the night. Though not as much as Sam had, judged by the papers and books cluttering the table. It seemed that while Sam had been asleep, Bobby had been getting some research done.

Their duffle bags were standing near the foot end of Bobby's bed, and on a cursory glance everything seemed to be there. The bags with the weapons, the ones with their clothes. But Bobby had said their flight had been hurried. Who knew if in between fighting off the remaining demons and dragging Sam's unconscious body to the car without being seen by anybody, Bobby hadn't missed something. There had been things strewn all over the motel room, it would have been easy to forget something and leave it behind.

Like Sam's smaller bag, the one that had been holding some of the handguns. It had been stashed away under the bed, Bobby could have easily missed it. And here had been some of their research books on Sam's bed, and some of Bobby's stuff had been stashed away in the wardrobe.

And Dean's journal had been lying on the nightstand.

Without conscious thought, Sam rose into a half-sitting position on the bed again before the agonizing pain flaring up in his chest even had a chance to register. By the time it did and knocked the breath out of him, Bobby was already by Sam's side.

"What did I tell you about moving around, kid? I swear, you Winchesters are all alike. Stubborn idiots with no concern for their own health."

"Bobby, where's Dean's journal?"

Bobby had his hands on his shoulders and was trying to push Sam back down into the mattress, but Sam fought against the pressure with all the strength he could muster.

"Lie down again."

"Dean's journal, where is it? Did you bring it?"

For a moment Bobby frowned as if he had no idea what Sam was talking about, but then something visibly clicked and he took his hands away from Sam's shoulders.

"Yeah, I brought it. Hang on a moment."

Bobby turned and started rummaging around in his pack, and Sam sank back into the mattress with a sigh, relief flooding through him so strongly that it even overpowered the renewed pain caused by the movement. Truth be told, he couldn't even say why the journal had become so important all of a sudden. Only yesterday he had wanted to throw it out, had been furious at his brother for leaving it to him, for leaving it to him the way Dean had done, but right now that journal seemed like the most important thing to be salvaged.

It was something of Dean's. It was precious. It was something his brother had made, something his brother had left for him.

Despite the impersonality of its writing, it was something his brother had poured his heart into. In Dean's own way, just like he had tackled everything in his life. No matter how much Sam might want him to, Dean could not get out of his skin. He could not do things any other way. This journal was Dean's way of saying that he cared, that he wanted Sam to be safe, that he wanted for his brother to go on without him. Not just to function, but to live.

Dean's whole life had revolved around preciously few things. Evil in all its varieties had been one of the few constants in Dean's life. That, their father and those preciously few friends John Winchester had made and kept over the years. The car. And Sam. Those had been the only things Dean's life had revolved around. It shouldn't be surprising that Dean wasn't able to express himself in another way than he had done in that journal.

Sam was still angry at Dean had accepted the possibility of his death so long before his deal had come up. But he was no longer angry that Dean had left him the journal. Despite that residual anger at his brother, that journal was something Sam felt the desperate need to hang on to. So when Bobby stepped back up to the bed with the black notebook, Sam immediately stretched out his hand and grabbed it. Not to look at it, or to read, and neither for another desperate attempt at finding a personal message of his brother which Sam knew he wouldn't find. No, Sam just needed to hold on to it.

For his whole life, Dean had been Sam's anchor. He had been what had grounded Sam in the madness that had been his life. Now while Dean wasn't around to do that, Sam just needed to hold on to something of his brother. To keep him grounded. Maybe then the world would start making sense again.

"If you're hungry, there's food. Burgers."

Bobby gestured towards a greasy brown paper bag standing on the rickety table.

"You went out for burgers?"

Sam couldn't stop his voice from sounding incredulous. He had known Bobby for nearly all his life, and the thought that he'd drop out on a food run while Sam was lying in the motel room, unconscious and hurt, somehow didn't fit. Bobby shook his head and shot Sam a glare that told him he should know better.

"We got them on our way here. Ruby said we needed to hole up for a while, until you were awake and able to move around again. So we stopped to get something to eat. They're probably cold by now, but at least it's food."

Bobby picked up the bag and tossed it over towards the bed. It landed on Sam's legs, but Sam wasn't too keen on grabbing it. He wasn't hungry, though he knew that his body needed nourishment. He hadn't eaten in over a day.

As if he was able to read Sam's thoughts, Bobby took a step towards the bed.

"You're going to eat, Sam. I don't care if it tastes like shit, but you're of no use if you drop from exhaustion once we leave here. So don't complain and eat."

So much for that. Bobby's tone of voice left no room for argument, so Sam reluctantly put the journal down in his lap and opened the bag. Inside were two cheeseburgers, their wrappers greasy and the melted cheese cold and long since congealed, but Bobby was right. He needed nourishment. And he had definitely eaten worse things in his life.

Sam took the napkin Bobby offered and worked his way through the two burgers. Surprisingly, once he had swallowed the first few bites, his hunger announced its presence with a vengeance. He was hungry, and even though they were cold, the burgers weren't half bad.

"What did Ruby say when she'd be back?" Sam asked between two bites.

Bobby only shrugged. "She didn't say. She said that if she wasn't back by nightfall we needed to move again and she'd catch up with us. To be honest, I don't know if I'll be able to wait out that long though. The other demons didn't take that long to find us the last time, and I've never been good at playing sitting duck."

Sam could relate to that feeling.

"What about her knife?"

"She took it." Bobby made an apologetic face. "It's not as if I could have done much about it. Before I knew it she had it back, and she most certainly didn't offer to hand it over to me. And we were kinda busy getting you into the car without being seen, I had other things on my mind."

Sam nodded. It would have been too good to be true if they still had the knife.

"It's all right, Bobby. We got it once, we might get it back again. Did Ruby say anything about where she was going?"

"Trying to find out more about where Lilith is hiding. She didn't give me a detailed itinerary though. And considering that I don't trust her one bit, I'd not even take that at face value."

And that was the confusing thing about Ruby. Whenever Sam talked to her, he got the feeling that she had a far better picture of what was going on than he had. But instead of just letting him in, instead of telling him all he needed to know, she kept playing with that knowledge, kept feeding him bits and pieces that were enough for the momentary situation but that weren't sufficient to give Sam a good grasp on the greater picture.

It was frustrating.

Ruby was frustrating. And far too mysterious for Sam's liking. He didn't feel comfortable being around people who were keeping secrets. And one big secret of Ruby's was something Sam hadn't even spent that much thought on until now.

"Bobby, tell me something."

As Sam balled up the empty paper bag and wiped his hands on the napkin, the older hunter nodded and stepped closer to the bed.

"Sure, what is it?"

"When Ruby first came back, at your house, she seemed weak. She even said she was weak after what Lilith did to her."

Again, Bobby nodded. "Yeah. I've never been possessed before, fortunately, but it certainly didn't feel as if she was in complete control. I mean, I couldn't do anything to fight her off, but still. The way she was swaying when she tried to walk, there was something not right about her."

"That's what I mean." Sam tried to sit up straighter on the bed, but stopped at the pointed glare he received from Bobby. "Did Ruby seem weak to you in that motel room yesterday? There was no swaying, no waving, nothing that made her seem weak. On the contrary, the way she slapped that demon around seemed pretty fine to me."

"She did say she was going to do something to get her strength back."

Sam nodded and fixed Bobby with a look.

"Bobby, what exactly does a demon do to get his strength back?"

Bobby sighed deeply and sat down on the second bed in the room. "To be honest, I don't know. I know a lot about demons, but I've got no friggin' idea what Ruby meant when she said that."

"But you have a suspicion."

Bobby shrugged. "There could be some sort of ritual, I guess. But considering that she's a demon, it's not that much of a stretch to guess that whatever she did, it didn't end well for somebody."

Sam frowned as his brain failed to come up with a logical way to process that piece of information.

"What does that mean?"

"She's a demon, Sam. A creature of hell. And they don't exist because hell is such a nice place to be that it can't help but spawning more inhabitants. Once the demons find a way to crawl out, their sole purpose is to make others just as miserable as they are. To put others through the same hell that they went through."

"Come again?"

"That's what demons are all about, kid. Tempting souls, condemning them. Weakening humankind and turning human souls over to hell, the more the better. Especially if what Ruby was saying is true and they're only waiting for the big final battle to begin. Demons might have been human once, I don't know, but once they become one of those things, they become all about gathering souls and delivering them to hell. That's what they're drawing their power from, that and whatever screwed up hierarchies and power struggles they developed amongst each other. So I'd say that whatever Ruby did before she caught up with us in that motel room, chances are that somebody or more than one somebody ended up dead for it."

The words were like a blow to the gut to Sam. Not only did they sound logical, they sounded almost too logical not to be true. The demons he had seen so far, not the ones who had been out to kill him specifically but all the others, they had been out for souls. The crossroads demon. That demon leading the witches' coven in Massachusetts. Yellow Eye, in his very own way.

It was a sickening thought. He was relying on Ruby's help to get Dean back. No matter if he mistrusted her or not, until they had a plan he was relying on her help. And if somebody had ended up dead because for that was the only way for Ruby to get enough strength back to help them…it was just as bad as if Sam had killed that person himself. Because this wasn't for the greater good. This wasn't the need of the many outweighing the need of the few. This was his selfish crusade to get his brother back.

And it scared him that he hadn't once considered any civil casualties up until this point.

When Sam looked up, Bobby was watching him with a frown on his face.

"What is it?"

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"What?"

"That Ruby might have killed somebody, or more than one person, and we just accept that because she might be of help for us?"

Bobby sighed and ran a hand over his face, then he shrugged. "To be honest? Not really."

Sam drew breath to reply something, but Bobby cut him off. "No, listen to me Sam. Ruby is what she is. She doesn't do things because of us, or despite us. She does them because it's in her nature. Whatever she did yesterday, she'd have done it anyway. After what Lilith tried to do with her weakened her so much, she'd have done it whether we were there or not."

"But normally we wouldn't just let her do it."

Slowly, Bobby nodded. "No. Normally, we wouldn't even talk to a demon, we'd get out the holy water and look up the exorcism. But this – Sam, all this stopped being a normal situation a year ago. If it was ever normal to begin with, I'm not even sure about that."

Sam shook his head. "It still doesn't feel right."

"I know, kid. But that's how it is, and what we've got to deal with right now."

And the problem was that Sam was willing to deal with it. He was willing to put up with Ruby, despite everything she was and might have ever done. He had been ever since their first meeting, when she had promised him that there was a way to save Dean. And that scared him. The lengths he was willing to go to get his brother back scared him. Not to the degree that he sacrificed himself, like his father had, and like Dean had. But only because he had promised Dean that they'd stop being martyrs.

That was the only boundary he set himself, the promise he had made to his brother. Though inwardly Sam knew that if a chance to get Dean back presented itself where he'd have to cross that boundary, he'd still do it. He'd do it and deal with the guilt later. But everything else was fair game to get Dean back. He'd deal with how he felt about it once everything was said and done. Right now there was no time to feel.

Right now all that mattered was killing Lilith before she killed them. Killing Lilith and hoping that it was enough to bring Dean back. Because if it wasn't, Sam wasn't so sure what he was going to do.

Yesterday – had it only been yesterday? The day before yesterday? It seemed like a lifetime ago. Yesterday, when he had been sitting vigil over his brother's dead body, going on with life had seemed so senseless. And now he had that tiny fleck of hope that kept him going, that little bit of hope which somehow over the past day and a half had turned into a fire burning inside of him, burning white and hot and spreading with every moment. Sam simply knew that if his hopes were crushed, if that fire went out, it would suck him along into the darkness. Him and probably everything and everybody around him.

Sam drew a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair.

"Do you think I'm putting too much hope into this?"

Bobby frowned. "What do you mean?"

Sam shrugged. "That I should know that the chances of bringing Dean back with this are slim. But I don't care. I just keep hoping that slim is enough. I keep telling myself that we've gone on less before. I keep hoping, and that hope keeps getting stronger, and I just don't know whether I'm still being realistic about this by now. I'm willing to go all these lengths, I'm willing to do all these things, but for what? Do you know what I mean? Am I doing this because it's necessary, or am I doing it just because I've got too much hope?"

Bobby wordlessly looked at Sam for a moment, his expression distant. Then he shook his head.

"Hope's a fickle thing Sam."

Sam snorted. "Thanks a lot. That's helping."

"You asked for my opinion. Do I think it's good that you got something to hold on to, something that keeps you going? Yes, I do. A year ago, when you and your brother stood on my doorstep after he brought you back, I wanted to slap Dean. Not for bringing you back, not even for bringing you back the way he did. But for setting the countdown on putting you into the same position. Dean brought you back, but he also set the stage for a repeat performance of this whole damn situation, only with the roles reversed. I've been there, Sam. I've seen what it did to him when you died. A part of him died too that night. I know that he was right with what he told me when I confronted him. He said he couldn't let you die, that he couldn't stand to go on without you.

"And it was the truth. The two of you are close. Have always been close. You need each other. So Dean grabbed his chance and made that deal to stop you from being torn apart. But he didn't consider that within a year's time, the situation was going to be the same. To be honest with you Sam, the closer Dean's deadline got, the more I was preparing for the worst. Dean was doing bad a year ago, and I figured you wouldn't be doing any different if we failed to get him out of his deal. And if we hadn't found out about the soul catcher…well, you're the one to answer that question. What do you think how you'd be doing now without that bit of hope? You'd be in much worse shape.

"So yeah, I'm glad that you've got that hope to save Dean that's keeping you going. But I also know that it's a two-sided thing, that if this whole thing fails and we can't bring Dean back, your fall is going to be so much worse than it was the first time around. Hope can keep you up, but it can also crush you. So I'd say we just stop musing about it and just take things as they come, one after another. And then, when it's all said and done, then we can start with the philosophy, in case we're really bored."

That last sentence was so typically Bobby that it brought a small smile on Sam's face, though his other words were also still running around in his mind. Where would he be without that hope to keep him going? Sam didn't want to contemplate the possibilities. Especially since it was possible that he'd still get to that point, if all else failed. If they didn't manage to bring Dean back.

"Yeah, maybe you're right. It's just not easy."

Bobby shrugged. "Nobody ever said it was. Now, while you were out cold, I did some digging in the rest of the books that we brought along. Not that I found much, but there might be a few things…"

Bobby never got to finish the sentence. Suddenly the door to their motel room flew open, though Sam was fairly sure that Bobby had locked it. Hunters were paranoid about things like that.

Bobby immediately reached for the gun he had tucked into the waistband of his jeans, and Sam struggled to sit up straighter despite the pain in his chest. Where was his gun? If the demons had found them, it was probably useless, but still he didn't feel comfortable facing whatever was in front of their door without a weapon in his hand.

But just a moment after the door had been flung open, Ruby stepped into the room. With her new human body it took Sam the fragment of a moment longer to recognize her, and that tight little knot of anticipation in the pit of his stomach didn't unfurl entirely even once he did.

Ruby took one step into the room, then looked at Bobby. It had started to rain outside, without Sam noticing. But he could clearly see it behind Ruby's silhouette in the doorframe. And the demon's long hair was wet, plastered to her face. Ruby seemed rushed and breathless, as if she was in a great hurry and had just run a long distance to get to them.

"Are there any invisible traps this time?" Ruby asked Bobby. "Because if there are, tell me now. We don't have time."

Bobby shook his head. "No. Just the salt lines."

For the first time since he had woken up, Sam noticed the thick line of salt running around the two beds, and in front of the windows. There was one in front of the door as well, but it was located a little into the room, leaving Ruby enough space to enter a step. Bobby got up and kicked at the line of salt with his shoe.

"Come on in. _Mi casa su casa_ and all that crap."

Ruby stepped over the broken line and for the first time looked at Sam.

"Good to see you awake again Sam. So obviously my little remedy worked, despite all the doubt that some people felt the need to express."

She cast a withering glare at Bobby, then turned back towards Sam. "Do you think you're well enough to get up?"

Sam struggled into an entirely upright position. "What's going on?"

"Change in plans. We need to act, and we need to do so now."

Bobby shook his head. "What? Why? The plan was you find out where Lilith is and we decide on a good way to lure her out and trap her. You're in no position to just go ahead and change anything."

Ruby cocked an eyebrow at the older man, then she shook her head. "I changed the plan because the old one won't work for anything but get us killed. Come on Sam, get up. Get dressed, pack your stuff. We need to go."

Sam reluctantly swung his legs over the edge of the bed and started looking for his clothes.

"What happened?"

"I found out where Lilith is."

Sam had just pulled the jeans over his legs and stopped with the fabric halfway up his legs.

"What? Where is she?"

Ruby's expression hardened.

"Sioux City."

* * *

Thanks for taking the time to read. As always, I'd appreciate it if you let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	13. Falling

Okay, so this took a little while. I'm sorry, but real life made a sudden and unexpected appearance in my life. I promise I'll work hard to get the next chapter out within a week, too - to keep up some semblance of updating rhythm.

For this chapter being so short, there's still a lot of quotes in it (which is explained by the style of the chapter as you'll see - it's time to take another look behind the veil, so to speak). Since quotes mean things are slightly spoilerish, here's the episodes those quotes concern: Pilot, Bloody Mary, In My Time Of Dying, All Hell Breaks Loose (2), Red Sky at Morning, Fresh Blood. Some quotes are verbatim, some are tweaked a little to fit the chapter. One is only alluded, that's for Something Wicked.

Phew, that's about it.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 12 – Falling**

He was falling.

Falling into darkness, falling through the darkness. Whatever thin and demure thread had been keeping him from falling was gone now.

He was falling.

Darkness.

Pain.

Darkness.

He was falling into bottomless depths, and he knew that once the fall ended it wouldn't be over. Something bad was waiting for him at the end of his fall.

The pain took away all his senses.

He couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't smell, couldn't touch, couldn't feel. There was only pain. His whole body felt on fire, his skin was prickling with a thousand needles stabbed into his flesh, his head was locked in a vice that was constantly tightened, and something was burning him from the inside, like a fire that was spreading through every vein and nerve in his body, leaving agony in its wake.

It was hell.

Every pulse of hurt shooting through his body tore a hoarse and raw scream of agony from his abused throat, screams that he couldn't hear in the roaring darkness around him but only feel as new levels of pain. All the single levels and degrees of pain in his body weren't counterbalancing each other, there wasn't one sharper pain that overshadowed the other. He felt every single wave of pain in his body in horrible clarity.

It was hell.

Why did he keep thinking that?

Hell.

How did he know what hell felt like? Was this what hell felt like?

Hell.

_**You cannot go back to hell.**_

There was something about hell, something he had forgotten, but something that was important to remember. But it was so hard to think through all this pain. So hard to remember. It was nearly impossible to have even one single clear thought in all this agony. One moment he wanted to bend his body to alleviate one pain, but the next second he felt he needed to stretch as far as he could to get rid of another before it tore him apart.

And he couldn't move.

He hoped and prayed for it to be over, for oblivion to claim him, but it wouldn't come.

No relief, only new pain.

_**You cannot go back to hell.**_

But how could he do anything about where he was and where he went if all he felt he could do was scream into the silence?

All he felt was pain.

All he knew was pain.

It seemed like that was all there had ever been, like it had all started with pain and was going to end with pain. Only pain. He didn't know where he was, where he had been or where he was going.

He didn't even know who he was.

Which was ridiculous.

He couldn't have forgotten who he was. He must have been somebody once, before there had only been pain and that feeling of falling into darkness. Everybody had a name. He needed to remember his name, needed to remember who he was. Maybe then the pain would stop.

Who was he?

Who had he been before the darkness? Before the pain?

_**You're a soldier.**_

A soldier?

_"Have you drawn the salt lines?"_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"Now I want you to stay inside until I come back."_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"Don't let anybody in."_

_"No, sir."_

_"And if somebody tries to get in?"_

_"Shoot first, ask questions later."_

A soldier.

He was a soldier.

_**You're a fighter.**_

Made sense. Soldiers were fighters. Weren't they?

_"The weapon training and melting silver into bullets? We were raised like warriors!"_

So what now? A warrior, or a fighter? Or were those the same? It was so hard to think straight through the pain. So what was he now? A warrior, a fighter, a solder? Neither? All of the three?

_**You're a son, and an orphan.**_

Everybody was, right? Everybody had parents, and at one point, those parents passed. That was the natural order of things, if that applied to him. He wasn't so sure.

_"Take your brother outside as fast as you can!"_

Fire.

Heat.

_"Come on Dad, you gotta help me. I gotta get better. I gotta get back in there. You haven't called a soul for help. You haven't even tried. Aren't you gonna do anything? Are you gonna say anything? I've done everything you've ever asked me. Everything. I've given everything I've ever had. Are you just gonna sit there and you gonna watch me die? What the hell kind of father are you?"_

Were those memories? Or just images that his mind came up with in an effort to try and make sense of this world of pain he was in and the strange voice in the back of his head.

He didn't know.

He didn't care.

All he knew is that it didn't stop the pain.

_"You know when…when you were a kid, I'd come home from a hunt, and after what I'd seen I'd be…I'd be wrecked. And you, you'd come up to me and you, you put your hand on my shoulder, you'd look me in the eye and you'd say "it's okay, Dad." I'm sorry."_

_"Why?"_

_"You shouldn't have had to say that to me. I should have been saying that to you. You know I put…I put too much on your shoulders, I made you grow up too fast. You took care of me. You did that, and you didn't complain, not once. I just wanted you to know that I'm so proud of you."_

There was even more pain now that those thoughts had come to the surface. Pain from the inside. So he was a son. And that thought brought pain. He didn't know why, but it wasn't a good thought. He was a son, but there was a lot of pain in that.

A silhouette that loomed over him larger than life for years and years, but that got smaller and smaller the closer you got to it.

Smaller.

More human.

Flawed.

There was too much pain there to keep thinking about it.

_**You're a brother.**_

_"And most importantly…"_

_"…watch out for Sammy."_

Sammy.

_"You think __Sammy's ready to toss around a football yet?"_

Sammy.

_"Sammy's a chubby twelve year old. It's Sam."_

Sam.

His brother.

_"You're my big brother. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."_

His little brother. Sam.

It was a thought he latched onto, a thought he clung to like a drowning man would cling to anything that stayed afloat. He had a brother. He _was_ a brother. And he knew that it was important. Why, he had no idea, but of those few things about himself that the voice in the back of his head had been telling him, that was the important one. He simply knew it. Soldier, fighter, son, orphan, all that might hold a meaning to the man he had once been, but it didn't hold a meaning to him now.

Brother.

That one was important. That was what made him who he was.

He was a brother.

He had a brother.

Sam.

He needed to hold on to that thought because maybe it was enough to get him out of the darkness. Maybe it was enough to make the pain stop.

He was a brother.

_**You're a soul worth saving.**_

_"You're my brother, and I would die for you."_

_"And the only person who can get me out of this thing is me." "And me."_

But was he really? Where were all those random voices in his head coming from, anyway? If those were his memories, he wasn't so sure whether he really wanted to remember. Was he a soul worth saving? Wasn't every soul worth saving? Why should it be important to point that out to him?

The pain was still there, it was still pulsing through him, it was still tearing silent screams of raw and utter anguish from his throat. So what did all that change?

Why should it be important to remember any of it?

He was a soldier. He was no stranger to fighting. So maybe he should fight this. Maybe he needed to fight this anguish, this torment and the pain that was threatening to split him apart.

He was a son. A son who had lost his parents. So he was used to the feeling of loss, he was used to keep going on even when the pain was at its worst.

And he was a brother.

He was Sam's brother. Sam who had promised to get him out of this thing. Because Sam thought he was worth saving.

But if Sam wanted to save him, why didn't he do it? Why didn't he make the pain stop? Why was he still falling through the eternal darkness, all his lifelines cut off, with nothing but pain and even more pain for company, with the thought of hell like a looming threat over his head even if he had no idea why?

If Sam had promised to save him, why didn't he?

Why was he still here?

Where was Sam?

And – even worse – what if Sam no longer thought he was worth saving?

What if Sam had left him here in this darkness?

Maybe hope was all he had left, and maybe the vain hope for rescue, for that faceless brother to come and save him, was the reason why he was still hurting? Maybe if he only gave up hope, if he only gave in to the darkness and stopped hoping, then the pain would stop.

Maybe the real hell was that he was still hoping.

Maybe he should just forget about Sam as quickly as he had remembered about him. If it was a way to stop the darkness and the pain, maybe he should do that. It sounded so easy. So tempting. Stop hoping for rescue and accept this. Embrace it. Anything to make the pain stop. There's no life beyond this, not for me. But I can stand it if only the pain stops.

_**You're a soul worth saving.**_

Who made you the judge of that?

If he was worth saving, then surely somebody would have already tried. No, he was stuck here. There was no hope, there was nothing. Just pain, solitude and darkness. That was all.

_"I've been looking up to you since I was four."_

That's what big brothers were there for. Didn't make it right. You could always look up to the wrong person, and once you realized that, you dropped them. Let them fall through the darkness. Leave them to their pain and vain hopes.

The real hell was that the pain was coming from the inside. All of it. It seemed like his life had consisted of nothing but pain.

_"Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're terrified."_

Hard not to be when you're left alone by the only person who could still save you.

_"I wish you'd drop the show and be my brother again."_

Wish I could, Sammy. But I don't even know what that means. What if I can't be what you want me to be? What if you know that, and that's the reason why you don't save me? I'm sorry I failed you, I'm sorry I wasn't what you needed me to be. And I understand. I understand that you don't need a brother who's nothing but a terrified mess who's scared of the dark and afraid that he's been left alone.

You have earned something better than that. I might not know anything, but that's something I'm strangely sure of.

_"You're my brother, Dean, and no matter what you do I'm going to try to save you, and I'm sure as hell not going to apologize for it."_

Dean.

That was his name.

Dean.

Dean and Sam.

Sam and Dean.

It sounded so natural, so normal, so right.

He had thought that Sam had abandoned him, that his brother wouldn't, couldn't, didn't want to save him. And just as he had been about to give up, his brother had given him his name.

_Names don't mean anything. Names come and go._

And that's where the voice in the back of his head was wrong. Sometimes, names meant everything.

His name was Dean, and he had a brother called Sam. A brother who was going to save him. A brother who, at the moment when he had been about to give in to the darkness, had given him his name to hold on to. A silver lining on the horizon. His brother was going to save him. Sam was going to save him.

Because if there was somebody who had earned being called a stubborn son of a bitch, it was Sam. Sammy would save him, even if just to prove a point, if only to show that he could. Sam would save him.

For all his life, Dean had been watching out for his brother.

_"And most importantly…"_

_"…watch out for Sammy."_

He had watched out for Sam. He had done all that was ever asked of him. He had taken care of Sam, to death and beyond.

And now he needed to trust Sam to watch out for him. He needed to rely on Sam to save him. If anybody could, it was Sam. Because Dean did trust his brother. He didn't know why, but he knew that he had to. He knew he hated not being in control, that it was his job to protect and take care of, and not the other way around. But this time he had to trust his life, his soul, his existence to somebody else.

Sam.

And he would.

Sam had given him his name back. Sam had saved him from the darkness once, he was going to do it again.

It was all the hope he had left, and he clung to it with all his mind, repeating the words over and over in his head to trap them there, to try and keep them from slipping away again.

Sam will save me. I trust Sam to save me. He gave me my name back. I can stand the pain because I know Sam is going to save me.

I am Dean, and Sam stopped me from falling.

* * *

As always, thanks for taking the time to read and I'd appreciate it if you let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	14. Backtracking

Okay, real life has been a bit more lenient on me, so I could get this one out faster than the last. Especially since I'm in a great mood right now, Germany beat Turkey 3:2 in the European Football Championship just a few minutes ago and reached the final. So here's my celebratory gift to you all.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 13 – ****Backtracking**

"Would you finally shut up?" Ruby snapped as she unlocked the door to the motel room. Sam was following behind her, a bag with his clothes slung over his shoulder, and ready to do anything but follow the demon's harsh demand.

"No, I won't shut up." He angrily slammed the door shut behind him, nearly throwing it into Bobby's face. "Not until you've finally told me what this is all about. I'm sick of following you around just because you say so."

"Sam, I've explained it all to you."

Sam threw the bag down on the nearest bed and stepped up to Ruby, hands on his hips, towering above the smaller woman. To Ruby's credit, she didn't seem fazed in the least by the angry young hunter building himself up in front of her. But Sam didn't care.

"You've explained shit. You said Lilith is in Sioux City."

Ruby nodded. "She is."

Sam wanted to throw his hands up in frustration about the fact that Ruby didn't seem to get it.

"If she's in Sioux City, it's a safe bet that she's at Bobby's."

Again, Ruby nodded. "That's be my guess, yes."

"Then why the hell aren't we going there? I left Dean at Bobby's place, for crying out loud! He's there, with minimal protection around, and now you're telling me that Lilith is holing up right where my brother is. Does it really surprise you that I want to go there before she gets it into her mind to do something to him?"

Because the mere thought was making Sam feel nauseous. Lilith was at Bobby's. She was where Dean was. That information had been enough to send Sam into a flurry of activity, despite the still open wound on his chest. With Bobby's and Ruby's help, they had packed their things and gotten into the Crown Vic. Truth be told, Bobby and Ruby had carried most of their things while Sam had been busy enough getting dressed without keeling over. His wound might be healing thanks to whatever stuff Ruby had smeared on his wound, but his legs still felt weak and as soon as he had stood up his head had started spinning. It had been hard enough to get dressed and get into the car without falling flat on his face.

The fact that his right wrist was swollen and hurt like bitch from where that demon had knocked the knife out of his hand wasn't helping any, either.

But all that hadn't mattered upon Ruby's words that Lilith was in Sioux City. It meant that Sam had to get there as quickly as possible, before she broke through the meagre defences Sam had been able to set up upon their hurried departure.

Ruby had climbed into the passenger seat of the Crown Vic, leaving Sam to stretch out on the backseat. And then she had started directing Bobby where to go. Sam had still been somewhat dazed during the first few minutes of the drive, but it had not taken him long to realize that they were not driving towards Sioux City.

On the contrary, they seemed to be driving away from it.

Ruby had offered no explanation as to why she had directed them another fifty miles away from Sioux City, away from Lilith and Dean. All she had said was for Sam to get some rest and for Bobby to keep driving, and that they were going to Sioux City soon enough. If Sam had had the strength, he might have considered strangling her from behind. Not that it would have done any good, but it might have made Sam feel better. They didn't have any time to lose, and now Lilith was taking them on a road trop away from where they urgently needed to be. Sam couldn't believe it.

And now they had checked into a motel.

Sam wasn't going to take any more lies or diversions from the demon, that much was for sure. Every minute they wasted was a minute in which Lilith could easily break the protection around Dean's body and do God knows what to him.

"I told you we are going to Sioux City."

Sam shook his head. "Stop lying to me, Ruby. I'm not stupid, I know how to read a road sign. I know the area, and I know that we've driven away from Sioux City. So what is this all about?"

Ruby rolled her eyes and picked up the duffel bag Sam had brought in. She opened the zipper and started spreading clothes on the bed and over the back of the two chairs in the rooms.

"Help me here."

"No."

Ruby rolled her eyes and proceeded to turn down the beds and do everything to make the room look lived in. Sam watched her for maybe half a minute, but when there was still no explanation forthcoming he made a few angry steps towards her and roughly grabbed her wrist. Ruby looked up and struggled against his hold.

"Stop that."

"What are you doing?"  
Ruby breathed a deep sigh, as if disappointed that Sam hadn't figured it out on his own.

"We're going to Sioux City. But in case you hadn't noticed, there's demons on our trail. It didn't take them too long to find us the last time, and the last thing we need when we go confront Lilith is even more demons showing up. We'll have our hands full with her, believe me."

"I'm pretty sure Lilith won't have holed up at Bobby's on her own."

"No, probably not. But she'll have sent the most dangerous of her associates out to find you. Lilith doesn't think we're going to come after her, especially not with you hurt. By now she should know what happened at the motel. We can't trap Lilith like we initially planned, not if the other demons are just a few hours behind us. We simply don't have the time. So we need to go seek her out. And the only chance we have to get to confront her on our terms is if we keep as many demons away from Sioux City as possible. That's why we're here."

Sam frowned and looked around the room. "What, you want to make them think that we're here?"

Ruby shrugged. "It won't work for long. But it might buy us enough time to take out Lilith. We didn't hide our trail coming here. We're going to leave the car in the parking lot, and with a few clothes strewn around they might think that we just went down the street for dinner. I'm not saying it works, but maybe we get lucky and they set a trap and wait for us to come back. Demons aren't stupid, but like with humans, there are some thugs amongst them that aren't exactly the brightest of the bunch. It's a chance. We're going to take the hex-bags and the weapons with us and leave for Sioux City. If we're careful, Lilith won't notice that we're coming. There, now you've got your explanation. Happy now?"

Sam was anything but happy. "That's your big plan? A little backtracking and then we hope and pray that the demons following us are dumb enough to fall for it?"

Ruby dropped the near-empty duffle bag and shrugged. "I leave the praying to you, Sam. If there is a higher force above that actually listens to the prayers, I got a feeling that I'm not on the list of people it listens to."

"You're not on any list of _people_, period."

Ruby placed a hand over her heart and smiled a fake smile. "Ouch. That hurt. We're so lucky that you haven't lost your sense of humour. Otherwise this whole situation would be practically unbearable. And now we need to leave. The old man needs to fill us in on as many details about his place as possible on the way."

Bobby, who had been lurking beside the door during the entire exchange, grunted in a non-too friendly way at the way Lilith referred to him. There was no love lost between them, that much was obvious, and Sam knew Bobby well enough to know that it was going against every fibre of his existence to listen to what a demon was telling them to do. It was a comforting thought, actually. Sam knew that he was single-minded in this whole thing. He was relying on Bobby to pull him back should he get too close to doing something he might regret later.

But Ruby didn't even react to the old hunter's grumbling. Having deposited the clothes and the duffle bag in the room, the demon strode over towards the door again, signalling that they were about to leave. Sam followed, strangely hesitant to leave everything Ruby had spread behind just like that.

Of course it didn't matter in the greater picture. They could always buy new clothes. During the four years at Stanford, Sam had never once spent any thoughts on the question of how many clothes were hanging in his closet. But that was an entirely different thing when you were living on the road. Sam didn't own many things, he didn't need many things, but that made it somewhat harder to leave half of his clothes behind as a distraction.

But it were only things. They were replaceable, and it was no use worrying about them.

Right now Sam needed to worry about the one thing in his life that wasn't replaceable. Dean.

They left the motel room and went over towards the Crown Victoria to clear all their bags out of it. Sam felt well enough to stand and walk around by now, but over the past hour the gash on his chest had begun itching and throbbing in time with his heartbeat, a not exactly comfortable sensation. His wrist was still smarting, and while Sam could move his right hand he was starting to get worried that the demon might have cracked a bone with his attack.

So considering his physical condition, Sam was kind of glad when Bobby immediately grabbed the two heavy duffle bags with their weapons and another bag with clothes, leaving a relatively light backpack for Sam to take. Once the car was cleared out and they had shouldered all their stuff, Sam turned towards Ruby again.

"So what now?"

"Now we need to get a new car, genius. And you two need to keep those hex-bags on you at all times. We don't have much of an advantage over Lilith as it is, we need to make the most of it."

Without waiting for their reaction, the demon strode off towards the parking lot of a small mall down the block. Sam cast a sideward look at Bobby. The older hunter was looking back, a vertical line of worry between his eyebrows.

"I don't like this."

Sam sighed. "Me neither. But it's our only chance."

Bobby held Sam's gaze for a moment longer, and it seemed that he wanted to say something, but then he shrugged and picked up the bags.

"Yeah, that's what worries me."

Sam followed the older man down the sidewalk, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach which definitely had nothing to do with his healing wound.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Bobby's junkyard lay in complete darkness as they approached it. They had hotwired a station wagon on the mall parking lot, an average family car of which there were thousands on the road. The last thing they needed right now was to be arrested for Grand Theft Auto. They had even exchanged the license plates with plates from another car in the parking lot, just in case that the theft of the car would be discovered quickly. But their three and a half hour drive to Sioux City had passed without any incident. They had left the car further down the dirt road that ran along the back of Bobby's property and had walked the rest of the way to the fence.

Sam had been at Bobby's numerous times over the past couple of years, but most of that had been shorter stays, a day or two of research, or regrouping. It hadn't been the time or opportunity to explore the yard. Back when Sam had been younger, twelve or thirteen, he had known the yard like the back of his hand. There had been a time when they had stayed at Bobby's for longer stretches of time, when Bobby and their father had been researching and preparing for some really big hunts. Dean had just recently been recently licensed and had explored the yard for hours on end in hopes of finding a car that was worth salvaging. Not that their father would have ever let Dean have a car of his own at that age. Allowing Dean an own car would have meant giving him far more liberties than John Winchester was ever willing to grant either of his sons at that age. Especially Dean. But those endless hours in the yard looking at the old rusty wrecks had kept the brothers occupied while John and Bobby had researched their hunt. Especially Dean had appeared to be in teenage heaven spending hours on end between the bent and rusted pieces of metal, looking for salvageable parts and trying to repair things.

But that had been years ago. The yard looked different now, and approaching the property from the back Sam had absolutely no sense of orientation. He only hoped that Bobby had.

When they reached the chain-link fence that marked the back of Bobby's property, Ruby stopped and turned towards Sam and Bobby. Contrary to the two hunters, she was only armed with her knife which was sheathed in her belt once more. Sam and Bobby were both armed with bottles of holy water, shotguns filled with rock salt and pistols that were loaded with consecrated iron rounds. Not that either of the firearms would help much against a demon. Nothing but an exorcism did, and demons who lined up to get exorcised were few and far in between. But there was always the hope that the consecrated projectiles would slow an attacking demon down. And the demons were depending on their human bodies. A shotgun load of rock salt at short range was bound to leave a physical impact and slow an attacker down, demon, human or raging bull. All Sam hoped for was that it might buy them a few precious seconds if it came to the crunch.

Bobby pulled a pair of wire cutters our of the inner pocket of his coat and started cutting through the mesh-wire fence.

"Only renewed the damn fence about a month ago." The old man grumbled as the sharp blades cut through the wire, creating a hole big enough for them to slip through. Once he was done, Bobby held back the wire and with a quick look up and down the dirt road to make sure that nobody else was around, motioned for Ruby and Sam to slip through the gap.

They emerged on the back of Bobby's property. In the darkness, Sam could make out the shapes of a number of car wrecks standing around, with the occasional odd-sized shape in between that could have been a refrigerator or an old industrial fryer. There were countless of strange things Bobby had standing around in his yard. It was difficult enough to tell those things apart by daylight, at night it was just a number of black shades against and even blacker background.

"All right, let's do this."

Sam nodded at Bobby's words and they started making their way across the dark and silent yard. In the distance, Sam could see Bobby's house. Like the rest of the property it was lying in darkness, not a single beam of light shining through one of the windows. It looked dark and deserted, exactly the way a house was supposed to look like when nobody was home.

Only that the house wasn't deserted.

Somebody was there, only that those lurking inside definitely didn't call this place their home.

The yard was silent, except for the occasional sound of rodent feed scurrying away as they passed a metal frame or something else that served as shelter for the rats. Sam didn't like this just one bit. If Ruby was right and Lilith was hiding out here, it was a damn clever choice. It was the place Sam and Bobby would not come back to while they were on the run. It was too obvious for them to stay here. But he would have thought that if the demon was here, she'd have taken more precaution. As far as Sam could tell, there was nobody standing guard, nobody around who was keeping an eye out on the grounds. Did Lilith really not expect them to find her here?

Sam was sure that Lilith wasn't alone, but where were the other demons?

When they had nearly reached the house, Sam felt a touch to his upper arm. He turned to find Bobby looking at him, wordlessly gesturing at himself, then towards the left, signalling that he was going to go around the house. Sam nodded, and the older hunter silently crept around yet another car wreck and vanished from sight.

That was their plan. Bobby was going to circle the house, get in through the second story bathroom window as soon as he was done at the cistern. Sam was going to go into the house through the root cellar. It was the most inconspicuous route of the three, or at least so they hoped. The cellar was locked and secured from the outside, and there was a Devil's Trap on the basement ceiling which would make sure that there was no unpleasant surprise waiting for Sam once he got in. The Devil's Trap was also the reason why Ruby was going to get into the house through the back door to meet up with Sam inside.

Going in through the root cellar was the way into the house Lilith might not suspect anyone to take. There was a strong chain securing the cellar door, and without the key Bobby had given him Sam would have been unable to remove that without causing a whole lot of noise. If Bobby and Ruby managed to get in undetected, they might just stand a chance to surprise Lilith.

And splitting up had the one single advantage that even if one of them was discovered, the other two still stood a chance to overwhelm Lilith. It was a flimsy hope, but it was the only thing about this plan that came even remotely close to a comforting thought, or somewhat of a backup plan.

The cover that the car wrecks provided them didn't reach the house. They had to cross quite a stretch of empty yard in the hope that nobody was looking out a window while they did. Sam didn't have such a good feeling about it, but they didn't have any other chance. Bobby was far too paranoid to provide somebody creeping up to his house with enough cover to get there.

Sam crouched down behind the rusted frame of a Ford, folding his 6'4'' body uncomfortably to hide it from sight, and watched the house over the hood of the old car. Ruby was taking cover beside him, but instead of watching the house she had her head tilted slightly to the side, just as if she was…listening for something. Listening wasn't the right word either. It seemed as if she was feeling around with senses that Sam wasn't aware of. It made him uncomfortable, to say the least. After a few seconds, as if knowing that his eyes were on her, she looked at him.

"I don't think anybody's watching."

Ruby kept her voice down, but still Sam flinched. One of the lessons his father had drilled into him from early childhood on was that you didn't speak when on a hunt. Not if you weren't sure that the enemy couldn't hear you. Even if you were sure that nobody was around to overhear, you only spoke when it was a question of life and death. Those were John Winchester's rules, and Sam had internalized them. There was a reason why he and Dean had learned to communicate without words, and that was it.

Sam nodded at the demon and gestured first towards her, then towards the side of the building where she'd have to turn around to get to the back door. Next Sam pointed towards himself and then at the door to the root cellar. Ruby rolled her eyes at the wordless attempt at communicating but then she nodded. They silently detached themselves from the cover of the car and hurried over towards Bobby's house.

Sam's heart was beating fast in his chest, and it was from the adrenaline and fear of being discovered far more than from the exertion of running. Any moment now he expected to hear steps on the porch, to hear somebody shout or to be attacked from behind by an unknown foe he had not seen before.

But nothing happened.

A few seconds later they reached the house and stopped below one of the windows. Ruby made sure that Sam was looking at her in the darkness before she spoke.

"Wait for me in front of the basement door."

Again, Sam had to suppress a physical reaction to hearing her speak. Especially since it was unnecessary. They had gone over this in the car when they had developed the plan. Sam would wait for Ruby in front of the basement door because he wasn't armed with any effective weapon except for his two bottles of holy water. Ruby had the knife, but she had refused to hand it over to Sam. So they had no choice but to go in together.

Truth be told, Sam didn't like the idea of Bobby going into the house armed with just some holy water either, but there hadn't been any other choice. Bobby needed to get to the cistern first, and besides, he knew the house and the grounds inside out. If anybody had a slight advantage over the demons in this situation, it was Bobby. Sam was sure that the older hunter had a trick or two up his sleeve, or rather hidden away in his house, that not even Sam knew of.

Ruby turned around and ran the length of the house in a low crouch, keeping below the windows so that she wouldn't be seen from inside. Sam watched her go, and only once she had rounded the corner did Sam turn around towards the door that led into the root cellar. He pulled the key from out of his pocket and put it into the padlock that was securing the thick chain over the door that led diagonally down into the cellar.

Getting the padlock open was one thing and easily done, dislodging the chain without causing one hell of a noise was something else entirely. The thick links were slick with oil and dew, and it took all of Sam's self restraint to remove the chain slowly and silently, and not to just tear it away and hope that nobody heard it. Sam had never been patient for things that required finesse and persistence in motor skills.

Finally, the chain slid free with only a minimal amount of metal clinking against metal. Sam put it down on the ground and wiped a hand over his forehead. It was the middle of the night and not exactly warm, but he was sweating as if the midday sun was shining straight down on him. If he had been extra careful with the chain only to find that the door to the root cellar creaked, he was going to shoot Bobby.

But the door opened easily and most importantly silently, the hinges well-oiled. Sam looked down into the darkness below for a second, then he pulled out a small flashlight and turned it on. There were no stairs leading down, just a narrow ramp suggesting that once upon a time this had served as a coal cellar. The ramp was flat enough to be scaled from the inside, but the fastest and probably most silent way to get in would be to slide.

Sam drew a deep breath, then sat down on the edge of the ramp and with the flashlight held tightly in his left hand and one of the bottles of holy water in his right, leaned forward and slid down. His jeans rubbed over the rough cement ramp, and the small stones and pieces of dirt he dislodged bounced along in front of him. The slide down into the basement was far louder than Sam had hoped it would be, and when his feet finally made contact with the damp cement of the basement floor he immediately got down into a crouching position and simply listened into the stillness of the house.

The only sound he could hear was the thumping of his own heart and his breaths echoing back at him from the walls. After a few seconds Sam straightened up and shone the flashlight around the room. The Devil's Trap was on the ceiling above him, painted red on the rough cement so that it would immediately trap every demon trying to get in through the root cellar. Else, the room was pretty bare. There was a floor-to-ceiling shelf against one wall, each board filled with jars of pickled…somethings. Sam really didn't want to contemplate the contents of those jars any further. He knew Bobby's abilities around a kitchen, and he knew that if those things had come from a stove operated by the older hunter, he never wanted to be forced to eat them. But then again, maybe that was another way Bobby had found to deal with unwanted demon visitors – exorcism by bad pickles.

When Sam had convinced himself that the room was empty except for him, he silently made his way over towards the door. The time it had taken him to get into the cellar should have been enough time for Ruby to make her way into the house and down here. He had not heard any sounds from above that would have suggested she had run into trouble.

Sam extinguished the flashlight and with the bottle of holy water clutched tightly in his hand, opened the door that would lead him to the stairs.

The short and narrow corridor was empty.

Sam checked to the left, then to the right, and finally in the second basement room across from the one he had been in. But aside from age-old boxes filled with books, notebooks and other stuff, the basement was empty.

No demon standing guard.

No Ruby.

"Damn." Sam whispered into the silence, more of a thought than a word he actually said out loud. The stairs to the basement were not far from the back door. Ruby should have been able to make it down here a lot faster than Sam had. Which meant that something had not gone according to plan.

Damn.

They didn't have much of a plan to begin with, they couldn't afford for things to start getting out of hand so quickly.

There was next to no light, but Sam decided to keep the flashlight off for the time being and feel his way upstairs. With the bottle of holy water held at the ready, just in case he encountered anybody or anything to douse it in, Sam started towards the stairs. He kept to the side of the stairs to keep the creaks to a minimum and slowly climbed up, one step at a time.

But even as he climbed the last few steps and carefully peeked around the corner, all he found was another empty corridor. The back door was closed, but the kitchen door across from Sam was open. Just like every other room Sam had encountered so far, it was dark, and it was empty.

Sam would really prefer to run into a demon, to get a scare by a mouse running across the corridor or by hearing a sound. Something. Anything, but this dark silence. Anything that would tell him what they were up against here.

And where was Ruby?

Since she wasn't in the kitchen or the corridor, Sam turned towards the right and started walking towards the living room. Bobby should be on the upper floor by now in case he hadn't run into any trouble, and for now Sam was willing to declare the lack of sounds from above as a sign of no trouble for the older hunter. Which only left the question where their resident helper demon was hiding.

Sam took another few steps towards the dark living room when he suddenly a loud, metallic bang reverberated from somewhere inside the wall beside Sam's head. Adrenaline shot through Sam's veins as he spun around, bottle of holy water raised, trying to locate the source of the sound, trying to find the enemy and make a stand.

There was nothing and nobody in the corridor with him, and a moment after the loud banging sound there was a thudding, followed by a continuous rush that was muffled by the walls. Sam released his dead grip on the bottle of holy water and nearly laughed as the tension drained out of his body.

It was only water running through the old pipes of the house. Somebody had turned on the water upstairs, and that was good news. It meant that Bobby had made it into the house undetected. But just as Sam wanted to turn around continue towards the living room, there came another loud banging sound from above. And this time, it didn't come from within the walls.

The sound of a scuffle was clearly audible from the floor above Sam's head, and Sam immediately turned around and started to make his way over to the stairs. Bobby might have come into the house undetected, but judged by the sounds coming from the upper floor now, that had not lasted long.

Damn it, where was Ruby?

Sam retraced his steps towards the stairs, torn between making his way as fast as he could and trying to stay as silent as possible. He crossed the door to the kitchen without so much as a second thought when something hard struck him over the head from out of nowhere and everything went black.

* * *

Behold, the climax of the story is near. Hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading, and as usual please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	15. The Demon's Trap

Here you go with the next chapter. This is it, this chapter and the two chapters after that is what this whole story has been driving towards. I for one am excited that the time of setting the stage is finally over and we can let the story run its natural course.

Once more, huge thanks go out to IsisSG1 for reading this through for me, helping me along the way and generally threatening me to write the next chapter as quickly as possible.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 14 – The Demon's Trap**

The blow had come out of nowhere. There was no time for Sam to prepare himself, no time for him to take a saving step to the side or bring up his arms to protect himself. One moment he was hurrying over towards the stairs, the next everything turned black.

Before he knew it, Sam found himself on his hands and knees on the hallway floor, his skull threatening to split apart with pain. The blow hadn't been hard enough to knock him out completely, but it had definitely been hard enough to have him see stars.

So much for nobody else being around.

But even in his slightly dazed state, Sam Winchester was a hunter. His father's training was ingrained in him so deeply that it didn't take conscious thought for him to act and react. It was instinctive. As soon as he found himself on the hallway floor, his body started reacting the way he had learned. He immediately rolled to the side, brought his feet under him and propelled himself up into a standing position in one smooth move, despite the throbbing pain in his hand and the dizzy and nauseous feeling. The blow to his head had come from the kitchen, so Sam got up facing the kitchen door. All he saw was the blurred shadow of a person standing in the doorway, and that was enough for him to react.

Without conscious thought Sam threw a punch. He didn't need to think. Fighting was an instinctive reaction, as instinctive as breathing. You kept on fighting until your heart stopped beating. The moment you stopped fighting was the moment you accepted that you were about to die. The Winchesters never stopped fighting.

Sam was no stranger when it came to physical combat. He was able to throw a mean punch, especially if he felt pushed into a corner. So Sam put his whole body weight behind the punch, and on any other day he would surely have felt some satisfaction at the feeling of his knuckles colliding with his attacker's face.

As it was, today Sam didn't even register that his blow impacted. His right wrist exploded in pain as the punch jarred the injury Sam had been dealt by the demon yesterday. With a cry of pain Sam tried to cradle his injured arm against his body, the reaction to the pain just as instinctive as throwing the punch had been. It was only a moment of weakness, but it was a moment during which his guard was down and during which he left himself wide open for a counterattack.

And whoever or whatever was lurking in the kitchen doorway knew how to exploit that weakness. Before Sam knew what was happening, another hard blow had pain exploding in his neck and Sam couldn't help but go down on his knees again. He knew more by instinct than by actually seeing it that his attacker was going to add a kick to his ribs now that he was on the ground. His position on the floor left his ribs wide open and unprotected. He couldn't avoid the kick, but he rolled to the side with the impact, taking as much of its force out of it with the movement as he could. It still hurt, and it knocked the wind out of him, but at least the kick didn't do any lasting damage. It just hurt like bitch.

Speaking of which. Sam wondered where Ruby was. Lack of trust in the demon or not, right now he could really do with some help.

But neither Ruby nor Bobby was around to help. Sam couldn't do anything to stop his attacker from grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and pulling him upright again. Sam blinked hard and tried to get a good look at his attacker, but he couldn't make out more than the blurry figure of a white man in front of him.

Sam wasn't ambidextrous. His left hand was definitely his weaker hand, but there was always the chance that a punch with his weak hand was going to surprise his opponent. Sam drew his hand back and simply punched, no finesse, no deliberation, just as much brute force as he could muster. But his blow missed its aim and suddenly the world was spinning as he was brutally shoved around and his right arm was twisted up on his back. Sam cried out as his already injured wrist was bent at a painful angle.

"No more struggling," a voice hissed in his ear, and as if to reinforce the fact that it was a command, Sam felt his wrist pushed yet another bit upwards. He wasn't so sure if the wrist wasn't broken already, but if the demon pushed just a little further, it was going to snap anyway.

"Move!"

And Sam had no choice but to obey as he was roughly pushed towards the living room. Slowly the haze around him cleared a little, and he could make out the shapes of the rooms and furniture around him in the darkness. And the house around him was silent – whatever struggle upstairs had caused the ruckus that had alerted him earlier was over. Sam felt a clenching feeling in his gut as he thought about Bobby. He only hoped that silence from upstairs didn't mean bad news.

There was somebody else waiting in the living room. Sam couldn't see the person in the darkness, but he felt that there was somebody else in the room. His psychic senses had been inactive ever since the demise of the yellow eyed demon, but maybe it didn't take supernatural abilities to sense another presence. A malicious presence.

"I don't know why you were struggling so hard just now. After all, finding me was what you came here for, wasn't it?"

Sam knew that voice.

Lilith.

It was the same voice he had heard in this very room before, a mere two days ago when this whole surreal road trip had started. So she was still possessing the same body. Sam tried to turn into the direction from which he had heard Lilith's voice, but the demon was holding him in a tight grip.

"Oh, but I'm forgetting my manners."

There was undisguised mirth in Lilith's voice, and a moment later the lights in the living room flared to life. Sam closed his eyes against the sudden onslaught of brightness, and he blinked a few times and squinted into the suddenly bright room to make out Lilith's form.

The demon was standing at the other side of the room, near the open doorway that led to the second set of stairs to the upper floor. She still looked exactly the same she had looked two days ago – the same wavy brown hairs and freckled face, the same jeans, dark blouse and brown suede boots with high heels. Lilith had her arms crossed over her chest and was watching Sam with a mixture of amusement and curiosity on her face.

"You took your time."

Sam swallowed hard, but remained silent. Whatever Lilith wanted, he was not going to give it to her. Ruby had to be around somewhere, as was Bobby. He only needed to buy some time.

Lilith stared at Sam for a moment longer, but when it became obvious that he wasn't going to speak she nodded in the direction of the demon standing behind Sam.

"Let him go."

The hold on Sam's arm wasn't released, though.

"Are you sure?"

Lilith's eyes turned a milky white within the fragment of a second and she made a sharp gesture with her hand. The demon was thrown back and fell to the floor, thrown by an unseen force that passed Sam without so much as physically brushing against him. He felt a pull on his arm before it was released, and Sam immediately brought his injured arm around and cradled it against his chest.

Lilith didn't pay any mind to the young hunter. She took a few steps towards the fallen demon, fury emanating from every movement and every gesture.

"Never once doubt me. You follow my orders. I won't give a second warning. And now go and check the upstairs. I want the old man down here right now!"

The demon scrambled to his feet and hurried out of the room. As he passed Sam, the young hunter for the first time got a good look at his assailant. It was a white man in his forties, of average height and average built. With a sickened feeling in his stomach Sam noticed the wedding band on the man's left ring finger. The man had a wife waiting for him somewhere, maybe even children. He was just another victim on Lilith's long list of ruined lives.

Once the demon had left the room and climbed the stairs, Lilith turned back towards Sam. Her eyes returned to their normal blue colour and her whole attitude and bearing immediately changed back. Only seconds ago her presence had been menacing and she had been radiating danger and a dark power. But now, the blink of an eye later, she looked like an innocent young woman who had stumbled into a particularly interesting situation. She seemed curious, amused, nothing else. What the demon could possibly be amused about, Sam didn't even want to guess.

"I hope you're not hoping for the old man to save you. I came prepared."

"And here I was thinking that you were licking your wounds."

Lilith chuckled and shook her head. "You really don't know me at all."

"Yeah, and I can't say that I want to change that."

"Oh but Sam. We have a little time to kill. Why don't we use it to get to know each other better?"

Sam's lip curled and he turned away from the demon. "Not interested."

Lilith shrugged. "Your loss. I don't think you're going to have the chance to make a lot of new acquaintances in the future."

"And once you're done with that it's back to shore leave and birthday cakes?"

Sam couldn't keep the sneer out of his voice, but Lilith merely shrugged, looking down her adult body. "To be honest, Sam, I'm getting used to this body. It's pretty. And it's so much easier to make people do what I want them to. Especially men seem to like it. Maybe I'll keep it for a while." She ran her hands down her sides, obviously admiring the body she was possessing. "At the time I only needed a functioning body, but it turned out to be really great. I only hope she appreciated what she had for as long as she could."

Her words left little doubt as to the fate of the woman who had owned her body before Lilith had chosen to possess it. Sam shook his head.

"Then I suppose I should be glad that you're not possessing another little girl."

Lilith smiled, childish excitement in her eyes. "Like the cute little one back in New Hope? I let her live, didn't I?"

"Out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose."

Lilith shook her head, her smile turning feral. "No Sam. There's only one reason why I've let that little girl live. Why I always let the little girls live once I'm done with them."

Sam didn't like the undertone in Lilith's voice, but there was not much he could do to stop her. And for as long as she was talking, she wasn't doing anything else.

"Why?"

Lilith took a few steps closer to Sam and leaned forward, as if she was about to share a great secret with him.

"Because letting them live is much, much worse."

Sam felt his throat constrict to the degree that he had to force out the next words. "What do you mean?"

"Killing them would be too easy." She clapped her hands excitedly. "Just think of that little girl in New Hope. If I had killed her, her family would have been sad, of course. Their little girl had to die after all the tragic things that happened to her. But you know what else, Sam? Mostly they'd have been _relieved_ that it was over. They'd have been relieved that they didn't have to deal with the aftermath. Didn't the mother beg you to kill her little girl, just so that it would finally be over?"

Sam felt his heart speed up at the memory of how he had nearly killed the little girl at the mother's urging. Had it not been for Dean, he'd have plunged the knife down and killed her, even though the demon was no longer in her. Lilith must have already possessed Ruby's body at that time to know what had happened.

"So what, you're saying killing her would have been better? Merciful? She's just a little girl, for crying out loud!"

"Yes, a little girl that her family is afraid of now. She doesn't remember a thing, but her parents remember every single, gory detail. How she killed the babysitter, what she did to the family cat, what happened to poor old grandpa. They will never forget it, Sam. That's the beauty of it. No matter how uneventful and normal their lives are going to be, they will always remember what their little girl did during those few days. They're scared of their own daughter, Sam. There will always be that little nagging voice of doubt in the back of their heads that reminds them of the monster their cute little girl became. And there's not a thing in the world that can change that. It's so much better than simply killing her."

Sam felt the bile rise in his throat. That was an idea he had never considered before. Up until this moment, he had thought it a mercy that the little girl had survived, a stroke of luck. But knowing that it had only been part of Lilith's plan, that the demon had deliberately done everything she could to break the bond between the girl and its family, sickened him.

Sam knew how strong the bond between family members could be. His father and especially his brother had been such huge parts of Sam's life that he didn't want to imagine what it would have been like if their connection had been tainted by that kind of doubt. It had been hard enough to deal with the revelation of his psychic abilities, despite his brother's constant reassurances. And he had been an adult then. It had been only a small degree of the doubt and fear that the poor girl's family was going to go through after Lilith's attack. Saving the girl's life was not the happy ending Sam had hoped for, and having that truth slammed in his face was a revelation he could have done without.

Lilith watched his reaction with a smile. "Oh Sam. Poor, innocent Sam. You really thought it was a mercy that I left her alive, didn't you?"

Sam swallowed down his answer. He knew that Lilith was baiting him, and it was a hard struggle not to rise to the bait. He was saved from answering when there were steps on the stairs and a moment later Bobby stumbled into the room, the demon who had overwhelmed Sam and another man walking behind him. Lilith turned as the three made their entrance, and Sam couldn't help but stare at the strange procession, either.

Bobby had a bleeding cut over his left eyebrow, he was pale and, much to Sam's surprise, also drenching wet. The demon Sam had fought with earlier roughly pushed Bobby into the room. The older hunter stumbled and nearly fell, and Sam automatically made a step forward to hurry to his side.

"Bobby!"

"Stop!"

Lilith flung out her hand and Sam felt an invisible wall rise between him and Bobby, preventing him from going any further.

"Stay where you are!"

She turned back towards the two other demons. "What took so long?"

The second demon nodded towards Bobby. Sam noticed that this demon was wet, just like his old friend, though he wasn't drenched like Bobby was. "The old man. He got Kzal, exorcized him in the bathroom."

Lilith shrugged. "It means Kzal got stupid. I shouldn't be surprised. He wasn't the brightest to begin with."

She took a few steps towards Bobby. "It's not nice to sneak in like that, Bobby."

"I can get into my own damn house whatever way I want."

Lilith chuckled. "Of course. But sneaking into the house to kill me, I can't let you do that. Impressive work with the exorcism under the shower, by the way. Though I'm a little disappointed. A man of your reputation, I'd have expected you to have blessed the water in your cistern a long time ago."

"Never been necessary," Bobby spat back at her. "Didn't know you bastards would start using my house as your central station."

Lilith chuckled, but Bobby ignored her and turned towards Sam. "You okay kid?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I am. What about you?"

Bobby touched the bleeding spot above his eyebrow with a slight wince. "I'll live."

"Not for long if I have a say in it!" Lilith interrupted them. "We're not here to chat!"

Bobby snorted. "No, I'd say not. We're here to end you, actually. Why you are hanging around here, I have no idea."

The corners of Lilith's mouth rose into a smile. "I'm here to end this whole farce once and for all."

"Big words for a little girl." Bobby spat back at her.

"I am not a little girl!" Lilith fully turned towards Bobby, her eyes turning white again and her entire posture radiating anger. "I've been taking souls and commanding hellhounds for centuries before you were even born, old man. Never underestimate me because you cannot understand what I am, and what kind of power I wield!"

Bobby only smirked, and had Lilith not worn those high-heeled boots Sam was sure that his old friend would also have looked down on the furious demon like one would stare down at a disobedient child.

"Yeah, possessing little girls and throwing birthday parties all year long certainly speaks volumes about the power you possess."

No sooner had Bobby said those words that his eyes suddenly widened and he brought his hands up to his throat with a gasp.

"Bobby!"

But Sam was still held back by the invisible force that was keeping him from hurrying to Bobby's side. Helplessly he had to watch Bobby's face turn a dark shade of red as he struggled to draw breath. Lilith didn't even move, she only raised her head and Bobby's whole body mimicked the movement, rising off the floor until his feet were no longer touching the ground. Then she lazily flicked her wrist, and Bobby was thrown across the room where he smashed into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster. For a moment it seemed as if he hung there, a demon's perversion of a wall decoration, then he dropped to the floor and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor.

"Bobby!"

With a yell of rage Sam threw himself against the invisible barrier Lilith had constructed, not caring about what kind of power he was going up against. This was Bobby, the last remaining member of his broken family, and it would take a power much stronger than anything Lilith could conjure to stop him from getting to Bobby's side right now.

And nothing held him back as he ran across the room and fell to his knees beside his fallen friend. There was blood on Bobby's face from the cut over his eyebrow, and his eyes were closed as he lay there on the floor. He wasn't moving, and his face which had looked dark red only moments ago had become deathly pale. Sam quickly stretched out a hand and felt for a pulse.

It was there, a little fast, but beating steadily against Sam's fingers as he rested them against Bobby's throat. And Bobby was breathing, albeit a little flatly. With a sigh of relief, Sam sat back on his haunches, one hand on Bobby's shoulder, and ran the other hand through his hair.

"I wouldn't be that relieved if I were you. I'm afraid that the old man's chances of seeing another sunrise are pretty slim."

Sam scrambled back to his feet and built himself up in front of his friend.

"You're not going to do anything to him."

Lilith smiled. She too made a few steps towards Sam so that they were facing each other, eye to eye with only few feet separating them.

"I don't think you can stop me."

Sam wanted to punch her. He wanted to stop thinking and simply punch her, broken wrist or not, as hard as he could. Whatever it took to get the sickening smile off her face. But instead he drew a deep breath and forced that feeling of rage to coil up somewhere deep inside him. He couldn't allow himself to lose control now.

"I will. You cannot kill me, Lilith. Not now, while I still hold my own deal on Dean's soul. And you'll only get to Bobby if you go through me."

Lilith shrugged, as if that was nothing but a minor inconvenience. "There are ways to get that done."

"What, you mean your two goons back there? Bobby already took out one of the muscle you brought along to protect yourself. Should show you that they're not invulnerable. Or clever."

"They get the job done. Do you honestly think you can take on two demons, all on your own?"

Sam looked at the two demons who were standing behind their mistress now, as if waiting for her next command. Their stares were empty, and Sam couldn't help but see the people they had once been, the people they were never going to be again. He would take them on if he had to. The problem was, without Ruby's knife, he had no way of killing them. If he had the knife, he'd dare to take both of them on in combat, and he was confident that he'd win. But without the knife, it was another matter entirely. In-combat exorcism wasn't exactly his specialty. But if it came to it, he was going to try it.

All this would be a hell of a lot easier if Ruby finally showed up. Sam couldn't imagine what was keeping her so long, or what stopped her from intervening. He only hoped that the demon had noticed the new situation and was around somewhere, making up a plan to get them out of it.

Sam didn't answer Lilith's question, he merely continued to stare straight at her in defiance, with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Leave Bobby alone."

"Give me the pendant, and the old man might make it to see another day."

Sam nearly laughed out loud. "What, you're trying to make me chose now? Bobby or Dean? Do you honestly think I'm stupid enough to just hand you Dean's soul on a silver platter so that you can send him straight back to hell?"

Lilith chuckled, the sound painfully cheerful in Sam's ears. "Sam, I never called you stupid. Though you didn't exactly gather intelligence points as of late. First you lose your precious brother to the hellhound even though you had the key to saving him inside of you all the time."

"That again?" Sam interrupted her. "Is that what it always comes back to? Yellow Eyed Demon's crooked plans for me? You guys really need to come up with something new for a change, you all start to sound like a bunch of broken records."

Lilith took a step to the side, and Sam mimicked the movement, keeping himself between the demon and Bobby. The demon was a predator stalking its prey, and Sam was the only thing standing between them.

"It sounds repetitive to you because you still don't understand what it means, Sam. Azazel was a fool, but he gave you powers most demons would do anything for. They can tempt souls and serve hell for centuries and millennia and still don't have just a fraction of your abilities. It was a _gift_, Sam. You've been handed the power to reign on a silver platter, and you refused to use it. If that isn't stupid, then stupid has no meaning."

Sam laughed. Lilith was pacing now, to and fro, forcing Sam to move along to make sure that she would not get a clear line of sight to Bobby.

"I'd never use that power for anything. I didn't ask for it, and I will never use it. Yellow Eye was wrong with his plan, and I'm most certainly not going to use that freaking _gift_ as you call it for anything."

"Not even for saving your own brother from eternal torment in hell. How noble of you." Lilith sneered. "And stupid."

"What, and giving up my own soul to save my brother's would have been the clever choice? I don't think so."

"It wouldn't have been giving up your soul, Sam. It would have been taking what was rightfully yours. At least for as long as Azazel was still alive, it was rightfully yours. After his demise you'd have had to fight much harder to take your position as the leader of Hell's army."

"I never wanted to lead any army!" Sam threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. What would it take for those demons to understand that he didn't want any part in their war, at least not on their side? "I never wanted any powers and I never wanted anything to do with any of you demons! I'm a hunter, nothing more!"

"Nothing more." Lilith snickered. "Now that's funny."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're the chosen one and your brother is the biggest thorn in hell's side, and you say you're nothing but a hunter. That's funny Sam."

"I'm not anybody's chosen one!"

Lilith silently raised an eyebrow, but continued her pacing across the room as if the constant motion helped her think.

"You are. Or rather, you were for Azazel. And that's enough for me – because once I get you out of the way, there will be no doubt that I'm the most powerful demon ever to be born in hell. I will be the one to kill Sam Winchester, Azazel's chosen one. And as a bonus, I will put Dean Winchester's soul in hell where it belongs. It's ironic, really. Did you know that it was the two of you because of whom the rules were changed in the first place?"

Sam was sure that the blank look on his face was enough of an answer for the demon, because she continued both pacing and talking with a smile.

"I thought you didn't. But when the two of you managed to trick Evan Hudson out of his deal, when you forced a crossroads demon to back down on its word, I realized that you were going to become more of a problem than anybody thought. Are you even aware that you've done what no human managed to do before? Countless poor bastards tried to break a crossroads deal, but you two were the first to ever succeed. You were becoming a threat to rules that have been in place for thousands of years. That's why I changed the rules. From that moment on, I was holding all the contracts on human souls, so that something like that would never happen again. You can't begin to understand how delighted I was when one of the first contracts that came in was a contract on your brother's soul. My biggest problem had just solved itself, and I only needed to wait for one year. You have no idea how important you and your brother really are, and now it's too late. Now the only role you're going to play is help me to come to power and start humanity's downfall."

Sam shook his head, struggling to keep up with Lilith's words. He didn't want to play any part in helping Lilith seize power. He wasn't going to help a demon with anything.

"I'm not helping you with anything!"

Lilith stopped her pacing and looked at Sam with her head cocked slightly to the side. She was still looking every bit like a young woman on an exciting adventure, as if nothing could possibly thwart her plans anymore, and Sam felt his ire rising again. He unconsciously clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides, the pain from his right wrist a welcome distraction from his desire to throttle the demon with his bare hands.

"Sam, I thought I told you that you didn't have any say in the matter. It's all out of your hands now. You might be clinging to whatever fragile hope keeps you going, but you have lost. I have an ironclad deal on your brother's soul, and all you have is an old pendant that's not going to keep your brother's soul out of hell for much longer. Even if I spare your life, that soul catcher around your neck is not going to work forever. If that thing is your hope, your hope is on a timer that's about to run out. If you die tonight, I'll get Dean's soul. And even if you live to a ripe old age, Dean's soul will be mine as soon as that thing stops working. You can't win, Sam. You can just as well hand the soul catcher over now."

"Never!"

Lilith laughed.

"You don't have a choice, Sam. Dean's soul is mine. Your brother is hell's bitch, and you can't do anything to stop it."

"And if it's the last thing I do, I will."

"How heroic. But big words won't help you now, either. You cannot protect your brother. It's a nice sentiment, but your words won't protect his precious soul, just like the salt lines and those cats-eye shells couldn't protect his body."

The words were like a blow to the gut.

"What?"

"Oh, you heard me right. I know that your departure here was hasty, but really. Salt lines, a few cats-eye shells and a Devil's Trap? That's all the protection you leave around your precious brother's body? That would keep away some minor league players, but you should know that it's not enough to keep out the big guys."

The tight coil of rage inside of Sam grew at the mere thought of Lilith being in the same room with his brother. He was clenching his teeth so hard in rage that he heard the enamel crunch.

"What did you do to him?"

Lilith's smile widened. "Who said I did anything to him?"

Sam's eyes darted away from Lilith for a second, towards the door that led to the staircase to the upper floor as if he could somehow see what Lilith had done to Dean. That was exactly what he had been afraid of, the reason why he had been afraid to leave Dean's body behind. His breathing sounded harsh and fast in his own ears as his mind raced through the plethora of things Lilith could have done to Dean, one worse than the other. Sam's pulse started racing and the edges of his vision began to blur.

Nobody was going to do anything else to his brother.

Nobody was going to touch Dean.

Over Sam's dead body.

"What did you do?"

It was a growl of pure rage, but it didn't seem to faze Lilith in the least. If anything, her smile widened even further.

"I was just taking a look around. I needed to scout the place after all, and I just happened to come across your brother's body in the spare bedroom."

"If you did anything to him, I swear I'm going to…"

"What? Kill me? Not an option right now I'm afraid. But I appreciate the sentiment. You can calm down, Sam. I didn't do anything to your precious brother's body. Not yet, in any case. I just took a good look around the room, and stopped for a little chat with your brother. Admittedly, it was a bit of a one-sided conversation, but from what I hear in life, your brother hadn't been known for his intellect either. But in his current state he makes a good sounding board. Oh, by the way. Compliments on those stitches. The hellhounds really did a number on your brother, but you patched him up good. All nice and even stitches. I'm sure he'd have appreciated it."

Sam saw red.

Dean's wounds had been on his torso and leg, covered by clothing. If Lilith had seen the stitches, that meant she had touched Dean.

"You bitch!"

"Oh, I swear I didn't do anything naughty. Though I have to admit that if I were human, I might not have been able to hold myself back. That's a fine body your brother has there, all smooth and muscular…"

And the rage exploded.

Sam had been struggling to hold it down for too long, and Lilith's words had been the last straw. The thought of that demon alone in the room with Dean's body was already too much for him to bear, the thought of her touching him, of her putting her filthy demon hands on Dean's body when he couldn't defend himself, when Sam wasn't there to stop it, pushed him over the edge.

Sam stopped thinking.

The only thing on his mind was that Lilith was going to pay for what she had done. He didn't care about the two warring deals anymore, or about whether or not he could even kill the demon. He only wanted to make her pay.

With a primal roar of pure rage Sam threw himself at Lilith. He didn't know what he wanted to do. There was no plan, nothing. Only pure and unadulterated rage. And it felt good to let go of that rage now, to let it spring from that place deep down inside of him where he had buried it for far too long, to focus it on one single thing and just let go of it.

The last thing he saw was how Lilith took a step back, slightly surprised by Sam's advance, then a blinding white light filled the room and took Lilith from sight.

For a moment, it felt as if he was suspended somewhere where time and space didn't matter.

For a moment, there was nothing but the bright light and his unleashed fury.

For a moment, Sam felt whole.

Then the light was gone, and he was standing in Bobby's living room again, his head ringing, blood pounding in his ears and his heart beating against his sternum in an attempt to escape his chest. Lilith was still standing a few feet away from him, looking at him from wide eyes. She caught his gaze for a moment and held it, then she slowly turned around to where the two other demons had been standing in the background.

Only they were no longer standing there.

There were two bodies lying on the ground, eyes open, staring unseeing at the ceiling, leaving no doubt to the fact that they were dead.

Lilith looked at the two bodies for a few seconds, then she slowly turned around again, her expression detached, but different from how she had looked at Sam earlier. Gone was the childish glee and the innocent excitement at the situation. Rather she was regarding Sam as if she had found a new appreciation for him. But there was also something else in her gaze, something Sam couldn't quite define.

She looked at him and after a few seconds raised an eyebrow.

"For the first time since all this started I'm glad that this whole soul catcher business means you can't kill me."

Sam swallowed reflexively, still staring at the bodies. He couldn't believe what had just happened. He didn't want to believe it, though there was only one possible explanation. Sam knew what had happened. He knew what he had done, remembered it in vivid detail. But it just couldn't be.

"I…"

Lilith smiled. "Yes, you did. Feels good, doesn't it? To feel a power that is so strong run through you, to yield it?"

Sam shook his head. "Stop it!"

"It's too late, anyway. Whether or not you're able to banish a demon by sheer will doesn't change anything. We're still where we were before. You cannot win."

Sam saw movement from the corner of his eye. He didn't take his eyes off of Lilith, but he paid close attention to the door behind her. There was definitely movement, and after a few seconds the person who had come into the room was standing right behind Lilith, so that Sam could surreptitiously look at them without alerting Lilith.

It was Ruby.

Sam had no idea where the demon had been over the past few minutes, but he was glad to see her. Ruby had her knife, if she could manage to sneak up on Lilith without the other demon noticing, then she could kill her and this whole thing would be over and done with. Dean would be back. He only needed to keep Lilith focussed on something else.

"I won't give you the soul catcher, Lilith."

Lilith smiled and cocked her head. "Yes, you will. You're alone, you don't have a choice."

Sam shook his head. "No."

Ruby was nearly upon Lilith now. Just a few more steps, just a few more seconds…

"Ruby, why don't you join us?"

As the smile widened on Lilith's face, Sam felt his heart sink. So much for the element of surprise.

Ruby sighed and made the last few steps over towards where Lilith was standing. Her knife was still sheathed in her belt, and now with Lilith aware of her presence there was no time to draw it anymore. Ruby looked at Sam for a moment, her expression void of anything that would have told Sam where she had been or what she had done for the past minutes. Ruby held his gaze for a moment, then she turned towards Lilith.

"The house is clear. There was a Devil's Trap in the bedroom and another in the basement, but aside from all the holy water and some weaker charms, that's been it."

Lilith nodded, but Sam didn't see. He had his eyes fixed on Ruby, not willing to believe what he had just heard. It couldn't be, could it? Had he really missed it? What was going on here?

"What…?"

A smile spread on Ruby's face, the kind of smile that sent shivers down Sam's spine, and once more he heard Lilith's cheerful chuckle.

"Poor, innocent Sam." Lilith said. "You didn't really believe that she was on your side, did you?"

Sam looked at Ruby, trying to find just the tiniest sign that this was all a deception, a wink, a look in her eyes, anything to tell him that it was Lilith she was betraying and not him. But there was nothing. Ruby only smiled, and at that moment Sam knew.

Ruby had betrayed them.

He was screwed.

* * *

Thanks for reading. As always, I'd appreciate it if you let me know what you think. The next chapter should be up soon, considering that I've got somebody after me with the proverbial whip to get the chapter out as quickly as possible.


	16. Everyting in Reverse

The fact that this chapter comes out today, and the way it is now is solely thanks to Isis-SG1. I wrote this chapter and part of the next and sent it to her for reading. A day later I had a major computer crash. Major as in all my files are gone, everything I had written since the last, too-long-ago backup I made.

I've poured much energy into this chapter and the next since they're the climax of the story, it would have been a real catastrophe to lose it because I doubt I'd have been able to reconstruct it the way it is. So thanks Isis - you really saved my behind by saving the copies of the chapters I've sent to you. Thanks so much.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 15 – Everything in Reverse**

Sam's heart was beating fast in his chest as he stared at the two women in front of him, the two demons inside those bodies, trying to comprehend what had just happened. But it just didn't go into his head. Ruby had betrayed them. She had betrayed him. She had been playing him all along, and now she had delivered him right into Lilith's hands.

Ruby was watching Sam with a satisfied grin on her face.

"Poor Sam. You really believed me, didn't you?"

"You stupid bitch. You've been playing me all along!"

Ruby's smile widened. "Of course. Which doesn't make me the stupid one, by the way. Somebody had to keep an eye out on you and your brother until Dean's deal was up, to make sure that you didn't do anything that would risk the deal. And you so readily believed that a demon would pop up in the nick of time to help you save Dean? With that naivety, it's a wonder you survived until now, Sam."

Sam felt the bile rise in his throat. Of course it had seemed too good to be true when Ruby had shown up and promised to have the solution to Dean's problems. But Sam had been desperate to hold on to his hope of saving Dean that he had accepted her proposal despite all his personal hesitations and doubts. Despite all of Dean's doubts, which his brother had voiced over and over again. Dean had known that Ruby didn't hold the key to saving him.

Sam had believed that he'd be able to see it if Ruby was deceiving them. He had known that to a certain degree, she was playing her own game, by her own rules. But that she'd betray them so deeply was something he simply felt unable to comprehend.

"So it was all part of the plan? You showing up here at Bobby's house right after Lilith left? Telling us to escape? That was part of the plan all along?"

Ruby nodded.

"What about the demons that attacked us in the motel room?"

Another shrug. "Collateral damage."

"So you knew they were going to attack us?"

"I told them to attack us, Sam. There's nothing like bonding during a fight for our lives, don't you think?"

Sam shook his head. "But it doesn't make sense. Lilith wants me dead, so why not just let me bleed out in that hotel room? Hell, you could have taken me out any number of times over the past two days and Lilith would have gotten what she wanted."

"It's not that easy, Sam. I was under orders not to kill you until you were back here."

Sam laughed. "So what, you're working for Lilith now, listening to what she says and following her orders? What did she promise you? To become her second in command once she's gone through with that ridiculous plan of hers?"

Lilith smiled. "Actually, that's exactly what she will become once your brother and you are dealt with."

Sam laughed and turned back towards Ruby. "And you believe her? Demons are lying bitches and sons of bitches, every single one of them. Lilith is about to make herself their queen and yet you believe that in the end she's going to keep her word? Now who's naïve, Ruby?"

Ruby regarded Sam for a long moment, the smile on her face unwavering. Finally, she sighed.

"Sam. Sam, Sam. Of course demons lie, and they cheat, and they do everything in their power to trick you little humans until your souls go straight to hell. A word between demons, however," she looked at Lilith and tuned her smile up a notch. The other demon looked back at her for a second before she turned her attention back to Sam. Ruby continued.

"A word between demons is something else entirely, Sam. It's something we take very seriously."

"Yeah, you just hope that Lilith sees it the same way."

Ruby cocked her head to the side for a moment, as if she was contemplating Sam's words. Finally, she shrugged. "You know what? It pains me to admit it, but…"

Suddenly her knife was in her hand so fast that Sam didn't even see the movement. Neither did Lilith. The other demon saw something shift in Sam's expression and made move to turn towards Ruby, but it was too late. A guttural sound escaped Lilith's lips, an oomph of pain and surprise as Ruby drove the knife into her back with so much force that the tip came out in the front, spreading a blossom of blood over Lilith's blouse.

Lilith stared down at the tip of the knife protruding from her body in shock, just for the fragment of a second, then her body seemed to start glowing from the inside, as if somebody had lit a flickering red light bulb inside her skull. Lilith still looked as if she couldn't believe what had just happened when her legs gave out beneath her and she dropped to the floor, face first, the handle of the knife sticking out of her back. Ruby watched her fall impassively, then bent down and retrieved the knife, wiping off the blood on Lilith's clothes before she sheathed it into her belt again.

Then she looked up at Sam with a wide and carefree smile on her face.

"…I think you're right."

Sam was still staring at the dead demon in front of him in complete and utter disbelief.

"What…"

"Don't strain yourself, Sam. You might break something in that pretty head of yours."

Sam shook his head. "What are you…"

"Doing? I'm taking your advice."

"What?"

"You made me see the light, Sam. Trusting Lilith to keep her word would have been like trusting me to save your brother's soul. It would have been a mistake."

Sam no longer knew what to think. Only minutes ago seeing Ruby kill Lilith would have been a relief, but now he was no longer sure of that.

"Whose side are you on, Ruby?"

The smile on the demon's face widened to that feral grin again. "I'm on my own side, Sam. The side of the one person, or rather the one demon, I can trust. And incidentally, it's also the winning side." She wiggled her fingers in the air. "Come in and play, Sammy. The water's warm."

"You're insane."

Ruby laughed. "No, I can assure you that I'm perfectly sane. In fact, everything is going just the way I planned it."

"You planned all this?"

"Of course I did. Come on Sam, do you honestly believe that I was in this game as nothing more but Lilith's henchman? Or henchwoman, henchdemon, whatever? I'm not somebody's sidekick. I run the show."

Sam shook his head. His mind was spinning trying to catch up with all the revelations of the past minutes, and he felt as if his brain would explode if this whole story was going to take another turn. But it seemed that it was going to go straight back into the well-worn paths of who was going to rule hell.

"That's what this is all about? Again? You wanted Lilith out of the way to step up and take her place?"

"What Sam? You think I was working for her out of the goodness of my heart? You should really understand that the world is not that kind of place, neither up here nor down below. Of course it's all about who has the power, and to get that kind of power you need to be ruthless sometimes."

She cast a fleeting glance at Lilith's corpse. "Lilith didn't have what it takes."

"Oh, but you have it?"

Ruby smiled. "Yes, Sam. I have what it takes, and so much more. You see, taking Lilith's place was not the only reason why I stuck that knife in her. There's this fascinating thing that happens when a demon kills another demon…"

She took a step closer to Sam, and when she looked up a pair of milky white eyes was looking back at Sam. He was sure that his heart took a double take in his chest, but Ruby only smiled.

"That's why there is no trust between demons, Sam. Killing humans, taking souls is what sustains us. But killing another demon, wiping out an entity that has existed for centuries, millennia even – it's a trip. A power rush."

"God…"

Ruby shook her head. "I don't think he has much to do with this, Sam."

"You have Lilith's powers now? Killing her somehow transferred her power to you?"

"That's a very easy was of putting it, yes. I like to see it as a reward for stepping up in the food chain. After all I have a position to defend now."

Sam felt sick. This was not how it was supposed to have happened. Lilith was dead. That was exactly what he had wanted, and he didn't even dare to think beyond that, but this was not how it was supposed to have happened. Killing Lilith only to replace her with another demon who was equally powerful, if not more, was not what Sam had wanted.

"So what happens now? You got what you wanted, or do you have another twist in the plan up your sleeve?"

Ruby thrust out her hand and suddenly Sam was airborne, lifted off his feet and soaring back against the wall and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He hung there, his feet dangling an inch above the ground, unable to move a single muscle as Ruby advanced on him. Her eyes hadn't changed colour again, but Sam didn't need that visible reminder of the fact that the times when he had put even a little bit of trust into Ruby were long over.

"Whrg…"

Sam tried to speak, but found that he couldn't even open his jaws, let alone utter a word. It was hard enough to draw breath. Ruby didn't pay any mind to him, instead she was watching her hand in fascination, as if she had never seen it before and it was a really extraordinary specimen.

"It's fascinating, isn't it?" She looked up at Sam with awe in her expression. "All that power, it's suddenly there. Just like that. I can feel it pulsing through me, and it feels so much better than any heartbeat ever could. But you felt it, didn't you? Earlier, when you finally tapped into your potential for the first time. It felt great, didn't it? Freeing. Exciting. Isn't that right?"

Sam wouldn't have answered even if he could. He didn't want to consider what he had felt earlier, that was something to be brooded about during a long sleepless night. Right now he needed to focus on finding a way to stay alive.

Ruby was watching him, as if waiting for a reply. After a moment, she chuckled and took a step closer. "Oh, I'm sorry. We wouldn't want this to become a one-sided conversation."

And suddenly Sam could move his head again. Ruby hadn't waved her hand, or even raised a finger, but Sam could speak again, and breathing came a little easier now, too.

"You bitch!"

Ruby shook her head with a disappointed click of her tongue. "Now Sam, keep it friendly. You don't want me to shut you up again, do you?"

Sam struggled to get out of the demon's hold on him, but Ruby was holding him tightly against the wall. He tried to do what he had done earlier when he had killed those two demons. He tried to tap into tall the anger and frustration that was still raging inside of him and unleash it, but no matter how much he struggled, nothing happened. Truth was that he had no idea how he had done it earlier. He had simply snapped, his fury had boiled over and had gotten the better of him until he couldn't think of anything but paying Lilith back for what she had done.

He simply couldn't reproduce it. He couldn't recreate that overspill of emotions that had caused his earlier release of power. Not intentionally, no matter how much he struggled.

Ruby watched him in amusement.

"I could have taught you, you know? If you only had accepted your gift earlier, I could have taught you how to use it. I offered."

Sam shook his head, the only movement he seemed capable of.

"You were working into Lilith's hands. Or into your own. You were never trying to help me with anything."

Ruby shrugged. "True. But that doesn't mean I couldn't have helped you. Azazel was dead, but you had a few last chances even after his plans for you died with him. If you had accepted your power when I offered it to you, I could have made you great."

"Why me? What is it that all you fucking demons think that there's something special about me? So a demon did something to me when I was a baby, and now I've got a shitload of dormant abilities which I never asked for. I'm still not going to turn dark side or anything. What is this obsession you demons seem to have with me?"

Ruby was walking to and fro, a few steps from one side to the other, forcing Sam to strain his head to the limit of how far he could move it to follow her.

"You really didn't listen to a word I've been telling you, did you? Hell is in disarray. Demons are looking for a new leader. There is a war upon us, and without a leader we will not win it."

"It all comes back to this frigging war for you."

"Yes Sam, it does. Because this isn't just any war that's upon us. It's the battles of battles. Demons against humans. The beginning of the end for the human race. And as I told you, you humans aren't the only ones who have lore, and myths. We demons do, too."

"Yeah, you told me. Lucifer coming back for the final battle against mankind, and all that crap. What does that have to do with me?"

Ruby shrugged. "Not much. Don't take it personally, but it's got nothing to do with you. But it's a widespread belief in hell that the beginning of the final battle is going to be marked by a human. By a human fighting on hell's side."

"And you think that's me."

"_Azazel_ thought it was you, there's a difference. Or rather, he was trying to actively bring forth the last war, the final battle. His plan was ingenious, really. Marking a whole generation of children and then picking the strongest and most clever of them in a really entertaining version of the Celebrity Death Match? Old Yellow Eye certainly deserves points for his style. So he's the one who brought this upon you, and now half of hell believes that you're the one who's going to mark the beginning of the next age."

"Half of hell?"

Ruby shrugged again and resumed her pacing. "What can I say? You're not as popular down below as you think."

Sam shook his head, weakly trying to move his hands or arms, but though Ruby seemed distracted, her hold on him was still firm.

"But all that doesn't matter anyway, Sam. You had your chance and you threw it away."

"I kept telling you that. I kept telling Yellow Eye that, too, not that he ever listened. I'm not part of anybody's plan, so if that bastard thought that infusing me with demon blood when I was a baby makes any kind of difference, then he was wrong. He got what was coming to him for believing this crap."

Ruby threw her head back and laughed.

"What's so funny?"

Ruby drew out her laughter for a long moment before she shook her head and looked at Sam, mirth sparking in her eyes which had at some point returned to their normal colour.

"You, that's what's funny. It's not making any difference. Right. It makes all the difference in the world, Sam."

"No it doesn't. I never asked for it, and I was never going to use it. I'd never let myself get to that point."

"No Sam, _Dean_ didn't let you get to that point. That's the big difference. On your own, with all the tragedy in your life? You were just like all those other kids that Azazel singled out. You were on the fence, and one push into the right direction would have shoved you right where Azazel wanted you. Jessica, Pastor Jim, Caleb, your father – it was all a design to make you fall. And always, Dean got in between. It was Dean who didn't let you fall. Dean who always foiled Azazel's plans. Your brother was a frigging human brick wall who always pushed himself in between hell and you. Without him, you'd have fallen a long time ago."

Sam swallowed hard, unwilling to admit how close to home Ruby's words truly hit. Dean had always put himself in between Sam and harm's way, and not only physically. Sam didn't know if he would have given in to Azazel's plans if Dean hadn't been there, but he was sure that the whole situation would have been a lot more difficult to bear without his brother by his side.

"You know that it's the truth, don't you Sam? You'd have fallen very deep without your brother. And I'm talking deep as in all the way down to the pits. But he always stood beside you, despite of what you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ruby laughed.

"Oh, don't play stupid Sam. For his entire life, your brother, the brave little soldier, learned to fight and kill everything evil in this world. And then he gets to know that his beloved little brother carries that very same evil inside of him. It scared the living daylight out of him, Sam. Your brother was afraid of you. Or rather, of what you could become."

"That's not true!"

It couldn't be true. It wasn't true. Dean knew him, Dean knew better than that.

But Ruby only shook her head.

"Oh, but it is true. Not that he'd ever let you know. But he was dead scared of that demonic part of you, because it was the one part of you that he couldn't control. And you want to tell me that you never noticed? You can't tell me that you never saw your brother watching you from the corner of his eyes with an expression on his face that you couldn't quite place? As if he was watching a stranger, and not his own baby brother? Don't tell me that, because I know you'd be lying."

Sam searched his mind for a good response to that, but came up empty. There had been those looks, when Dean had thought Sam wasn't watching him. It had begun after Sam's visions had first started, and they had gotten more often when they had found the other psychic kids and had seen what they had turned into. Dean had been worried. Scared even, maybe. If Dean ever got scared. But he had overplayed that, and Sam had decided not to remark on it because he knew that it would end in the kind of discussion that his brother hated to have.

Maybe they should have talked about it.

They should have talked about it, no matter if Dean didn't like that kind of discussion or not.

"So why the sudden change in plans?"

Ruby shrugged. "Other than the fact that I wasn't going to be somebody else's second in command? I really don't like to share, Sammy."

"It's Sam."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I don't like to share. Besides, I had my own plan right from the start, and working for Lilith I could make sure that it came to fruition. Because I knew what the blind spot in Azazel's plan was, and what the one thing was that Lilith hadn't considered. So I made my own plan, and I stuck around while you and your brother were trying to get dearest Dean out of his deal – to make sure that what you did didn't endanger my plan."

"Oh, please tell me about your plan. Don't make it sound all that mystical, I can barely stand the tension as it is."

Ruby stopped her pacing at the sarcastic undertone in Sam's voice. "Don't take that tone with me, Sam. I'm trying to make you understand why I did what I had to do."

"Why? Why do you need me to understand anything? You want to become the big yahoo down in hell – be my guest. But leave my brother and me out of it."

"That's exactly the point, Sam. I _can't_. I can't leave you out of this because it always, always comes back to you."

Sam shook his head. "Please, don't tell me about your special plan, and why it's so much better than the crap Yellow Eye and Lilith came up with. You're just like they are, no matter your reasons for what you did. All that talk about you being different from the other demons? Bullshit. All those speeches about remembering your humanity? Empty words, nothing more. You're just like all the others."

Ruby threw her hands in the air and resumed her pacing. "You just don't see it, Sam. You don't want to see it. That's exactly what all this was about. I am different. Azazel was powerful, but he was just a demon like everybody else. He was so blinded by his big plan that he didn't realize the moment the script changed. And Lilith," she pointed at the body lying on the ground, "made the same mistakes. They're the ordinary demons, Sam. They're the ones who are blind to seeing the whole picture because they didn't understand that to take down humankind, you have to understand what it's like to be human."

"And you can."

Ruby laughed. "Of course I can. Who is better suited to lead the demons into the big battle against humankind than a demon who remembers what it's like to be human? The big battles need special leaders. Azazel didn't have what it took and neither did Lilith. But I have it. I'm going to be the one to bring forth the turn of the tide. Humanity's downfall is going to be brought forth by the demon who actually remembers what it's like to be one of those you're fighting. The battle will be led by the demon and the human who both have an insight into the other side."

Sam felt his stomach churn at Ruby's words. Didn't she understand? Hadn't he been brutally clear on that one matter?

"I'm not going to play along with your sick plan, Ruby. I don't know what keeps you from understanding it, but I am not. I didn't do what Yellow Eye wanted me to do, and I won't become your toy soldier either!"

Ruby threw her head back and laughed.

"Oh Sam. Sweet, innocent Sam. That's so cute. But I'm afraid that just this once, I'm not talking about you."

Sam's heart was beating so fast in his chest, it felt as if it was about to burst free any second now. He didn't know where this conversation was going, but he had the sinking feeling in his stomach that he wasn't going to like it.

"What do you mean?"

Ruby shook her head. "I mean that John didn't do you any good with the way he raised you, kid. Everything was always about Sammy, Sammy the special one, Sammy with the demon blood, Sammy who needed his father and brother to watch out for him so that he wouldn't fall to the dark side. It's no small wonder that you automatically assume that everything is about you. But this isn't, get it? This is no longer about you, Sam. You had your chance, and you didn't take it. That's what brought Azazel's downfall. His plans were relying on the wrong Winchester all along."

Sam felt that he couldn't breathe, and it had nothing to do with Ruby's hold on him. It felt like a blow to the gut that left him breathless and reeling.

"Dean?"

Ruby laughed. "Dearest Dean. You didn't think that it was his sole task in life to protect your sorry ass, did you? Dean is destined for so much more. For bigger things. Great, horrible, beautiful things."

The bile was rising in Sam's throat as the demon's words sunk in. "Dean will never…"

"Yes, he will. Sam, this is so much bigger than you or your brother already. He made the choice himself, you know?"

Sam didn't believe a word of what Ruby was saying. "He never made such a choice!"

"Oh yes, he did. The moment he sacrificed himself for you, the moment he sold his soul to hell, he did. Lilith never saw it, but I knew it all along. Lilith's plan was faulty. She thought that the best moment to get rid of you was when your defences were down. What better moment than right after your brother died? Two birds with one stone – Dean's soul frying in hell, and you dead. I helped her make sure that her plan came to fruition. I stuck around you two yahoos and made sure that no matter what you did, Dean ended up in hell."

"But why? To what gain?"

Ruby shrugged. "I was biding my time. Waiting for the right moment to get rid of Lilith – and there was no need to keep her from doing some of the dirty work in the meantime. But the moment I got to know about the soul catcher…" She started pacing again, an excited sparkle in her eyes. "It was all I ever wanted on a silver platter. Dean's way out of hell. His way to do what no human has ever done before. To come back from hell. And if that happened, if your brother's soul went to hell and came back – Sam, don't you see it? A demon who remembers being human and a human who has actually been to hell, the pair that's going to lead the demonic forces into the last battle against humankind."

Sam shook his head, unable to comprehend what Ruby was saying. She couldn't seriously think that Dean was going to go along with that.

"Your plan is just as faulty as Lilith's was, Ruby. Dean is never going to help you with that. Not Dean."

Ruby only laughed. "It might have only been two days, but this is hell we're talking about. I'm sorry to disappoint you, and maybe I should have told you that sooner, but the brother you've known for all you life? He's gone. That's what hell does."

"You're lying!"  
"No Sam, I'm not." Ruby took a couple of steps towards Sam so that she was standing right in front of him. From up close, the smile on her face was even more sickening, and Sam knew that had he been able to move, he'd have punched that grin off her face without hesitation. As it was he was struggling against her hold on him, but couldn't move the fragment of an inch.

Over Ruby's head, he was looking at Bobby. Had the older hunter just moved? Sam couldn't tell for sure. Maybe he was hoping for it so much that he started imagining things, but he could have sworn that Bobby had just moved. Maybe, just maybe if Bobby had woken up, there was still a chance to end Ruby. But no matter how much Sam strained his neck and looked, he couldn't see Bobby clearly enough to be sure.

Sam swallowed hard and looked back at Ruby.

"So what now?"

Ruby shrugged. "You tell me. But no matter how I look at it, now that Lilith is gone, I'd say you have outlived your usefulness. Wouldn't you agree?"

Sam's breathing hitched. He didn't allow himself about the implications of Lilith's death. Lilith's death meant her deal on Dean's soul was null and void. But what did that mean? Sam had no idea, but the only person who possibly held the answers to his questions was the one person he no longer trusted about anything.

Ruby was watching him in fascination, as if she could read his inner turmoil from the expression on his face alone. Her smile widened.

"Oh, poor Sammy. It has to be a horrible feeling to have your whole world come crashing down around you. All those hopes, all those hours of begging and praying to a god who won't listen to bring your brother back to you, and now you won't live to see it. Heartbreaking, really."

She shrugged. "But I'm afraid heartbreaking is not enough to sway me."

And suddenly Sam couldn't breathe. His first instinct was to bring his hand up against his throat to remove whatever was choking him, but he couldn't move. He strained against Ruby's hold on him so hard that he thought he was about to tear something, but he couldn't move a single muscle. And his lungs were starving for oxygen. The only part of his body that he could move was his head, but no amount of tossing it from the left to the right brought any relief, or an opening of his windpipe.

All he saw was Ruby's smiling face two feet away from him, milky white eyes watching his struggle in obvious glee.

And looking into her grinning face, Sam realized that this was it. This time, no help was going to come. Nobody was going to save him in time. Nobody was there to stop Ruby, and in a few seconds, half a minute maybe, he was going to choke to death.

Sam closed his eyes, refusing to stare into Ruby's visage during the moment that he died. The edges of his vision were turning dark and fuzzy, anyway, and with his eyes closed, at least he had the choice of what the last image he saw would be.

His lungs were screaming for oxygen now, desperately craving to draw just a single breath and get some precious air into his lungs, but he couldn't draw a breath. There was a loud ringing sound in his ears, drowning out all other noise. He could feel the darkness creep up towards him, when suddenly a loud yell drowned out the ringing in his ears.

"Hey!"

Sam didn't have the strength to open his eyes, but he mobilized his last reserves to stay conscious when he distantly heard the sound of a gunshot.

* * *

As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	17. Soulbound

Since I'm so glad that this chapter was saved from my document-erasing computer crash, I finished writing it in order to get it out to you as quickly as possible. I guess that some of you were waiting for the resolution of that last particular cliffhanger.

Again, huge thanks and eternal gratitude go out to Isis-SG1 because that first half of the chapter would have been lost without her. Since she prompted me to write what we've come to call the MOAH in the first place, I guess that dedication and thanks is hard earned.

And now I'll leave you to read the story in peace.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 15 – Soulbound**

The sound of a gun discharging not once, but three times in rapid succession close by made Sam open his eyes even though he didn't have the energy left to move a single muscle. And suddenly he could breathe again. Sam gulped down deep breaths of sweet, cool oxygen. He still couldn't move, was still pinned against the wall, but he didn't need to move to be able to breathe. And right now that was all he could think about – wheezing breaths that drew oxygen in his lungs.

Oxygen. That was all that counted.

If only he got enough oxygen, then the world would finally stop being blurry. For the moment, all that counted was that he could breathe again.

Sam blinked a few times as the world slowly rearranged itself in front of his eyes. Bobby's living room slid back into focus. He was still pinned to the wall, and Ruby was still standing in front of him, just a few feet away. She was looking over her shoulder, but as Sam's vision cleared again, she turned her head back towards him.

There were two bloody holes on the front of her shirt, frayed and large in a way that clearly marked them as exit wounds. But of course bullets were nothing but a minor nuisance for a demon. Definitely not enough to stop Ruby in the long run. But it had distracted her from choking him, which was all Sam cared about for the moment.

Ruby locked eyes with Sam for a second, then she cocked an eyebrow.

"You're living on borrowed time, Sam Winchester. But this way, it could become a whole lot more interesting. We'll see each other again real soon. I can't wait."

She threw her head back and with a roar, Ruby left her human body in a cloud of dark smoke. Sam hung suspended against the wall for a second longer, but the moment the dark cloud had dissipated and the young woman's body bonelessly sank to the floor, Sam felt gravity take a hold of him again as he slid down the wall and landed on the ground in a tangled heap of limbs. He immediately brought a hand up to his throat, the reaction instinctive though his breathing was no longer restricted, and it took him a second until he was able to raise his head and look across the room.

Bobby was still in the same spot that he had been in earlier, in front of the wall to Sam's left, but the younger hunter was glad to see that the older man had regained consciousness and was slowly getting to his feet again. Bobby was alive.

But then Sam's brain caught up with what had happened over the past moments.

Bobby was barely conscious and seemed to have trouble getting back to his feet. There was no gun in his hand, or in fact anywhere else in sight.

But if Bobby hadn't shot Ruby, who had?

Abruptly, Sam turned his head and swept the room with his eyes.

And the world stopped turning.

For just a second, Sam was sure that time stopped. For just one second, the earth stopped turning, and everything halted. It happened within a heartbeat, then it all picked up again, but the shift was so enormous as if the tectonic plates had all just moved at once. Everything that had been out of synch for the past two days returned to normal as the world returned to spinning back on its axis.

There was somebody else in the room, somebody other than Bobby, Sam or the three dead bodies lying on the floor. And whatever neural pathway in Sam's brain hadn't yet been short-circuited by all the revelations of the past hour stopped working from one moment to the next. Because it simply couldn't be.

But it was. Either it was true, or it was the cruellest illusion Sam had ever been subjected to.

Dean was in the doorway that led to the stairs.

He was leaning heavily against the doorjamb, his face a deathly ashen pallor, his posture hunched and his left arm held protectively over his stomach. His gun, the very gun Sam had deposited beside Dean's bed only two days ago, was in Dean's right hand, hanging loosely by his leg. His brother had his eyes screwed shut, pain etched into every line on his face, and his breathing was harsh.

But it was Dean.

Sam had clung to his brother's dead body for hours, had felt the life and warmth flee from it. Dean had been dead.

But now he was standing there, quite obviously in pain, but moving and breathing and _alive_. Alive.

"Dean!"

The word had torn from Sam's lips without conscious thought, like a prayer, and as if that had been the signal his body had been waiting for, Sam propelled himself to his feet and hurried across the room. His whole body was sore, and he was stumbling over the rug on the floor, but he didn't care. He didn't once take his eyes off his brother's form, afraid that if he only so much as blinked, he'd be gone again. Sam stumbled blindly, driven forward by the urge to see, to feel and touch Dean and reassure himself that this was real.

Bobby's living room had never seemed so huge, the distance to the doorway never so far.

"Dean!" Sam repeated as he skidded to a stop in front of his brother, both hands outstretched towards Dean's shoulders. But it was as if something was holding him back from actually touching Dean. Sam's hands hovered an inch away from Dean's shoulders, uncertainty keeping him back from reaching out and covering those last few inches. Uncertainty and fear that this all was just a dream, a horrible nightmare. His brother still hadn't moved, hadn't reacted in any way.

"Dean! Come on man, talk to me!"

When Dean still didn't react, Sam brushed aside the invisible barrier of hesitation and doubt that was holding him back and reached for his brother's shoulders.

He didn't know what he had expected, if some distant part of him had thought his hands were just going to push through the apparition in front of him like through thin air. But when his hands closed around solid, cotton-clad flesh, a sob tore free from Sam's throat.

"Dean."

Upon his brother's touch, Dean bonelessly sank forward, as if his own strength had been just enough to keep him upright until his brother reached him. The gun dropped from his limp hand, falling to the floor with a dull thud, but Sam barely noticed. He stumbled under his brother's weight, just about able to keep his balance to stop them from falling to the floor. Carefully, ever so carefully, aware of the previous weight in his arms, Sam lowered them to the floor right where they were, in the doorway. Dean still didn't move, he was just a limp weight in Sam's arms, but there was a difference to the limp weight he had been on the way back from New Hope. A huge difference.

All the difference in the world – and for the first time in his life, Sam understood the meaning behind those words.

How they ended up on the floor was uncomfortable. Sam's legs were folded at an awkward angle, but it didn't matter because Dean was there, and he was not the cold and unmoving dead body Sam had held in his arms just two days before. No, this Dean wasn't dead. The skin underneath the cotton of the t-shirt was warm, he was breathing and his face was still pinched in pain. All signs of life. Dean was alive, and that was all that counted.

Carefully, Sam brought a hand up and pushed his fingers against his brother's neck. The pulse that beat against his fingers was steady and strong, if a little fast for Sam's liking. But it was a pulse. A heartbeat. A sign of life.

"Dean."

Dean was alive.

Sam barely realized that another sob tore from his throat.

Dean was alive. Living, breathing, heart beating, _alive_.

Sam put a hand against the skin – the warm skin – of Dean's neck and pulled his brother against his chest, tightly, not caring that he was crushing both Dean's arms between their chests. He needed to hold Dean. At this moment, there was no other option. Even if Dean was going to punch him for it later and mock him for all eternity. Sam would gladly accept being called a wuss for the days and years to come because he had to do this right now. He had to hold on to Dean like a drowning man would cling to a floating log, because if he let go of Dean again it was going to tear his soul apart, and Sam knew that he wouldn't survive it for a second time.

He had barely survived the first time.

With one hand on Dean's neck and the other across his back, Sam clung to Dean like he had not done since he had been a little child, little Sammy who had woken up from a nightmare and sought out his big brother for comfort. But Sam didn't care that he no longer was that little child, because all that mattered was that he still had a big brother. He had his big brother back. So Sam just sat there, handing on to Dean like he was his lifeline. He had his face pressed into Dean's hair, gently rocking them back and forth and back and forth, as his mind repeated that life-saving mantra over and over again.

_Dean is alive. Dean is alive. Dean is alive._

A limp weight in his arms, but he was alive. He was breathing, he had a heartbeat, and if Sam closed his eyes and simply breathed he could smell Dean, too – that mixed scent of gun cleaning solution, motor oil, cheap aftershave and open road that always seemed to cling to his brother, even beneath the coppery stench of blood that still lingered on Dean's skin.

Sam clung to that like he clung to his brother's body. He consciously noticed every little sign of life in his brother, every hitched breath, every heartbeat, the warmth returning to Dean's skin. He noticed all those signs, catalogued them one by one with a fierce protectiveness, and silently challenged every person and entity who wanted to take that away from Dean again to go through him first.

Because he was not going to let his brother go again.

"Dean."

Statement. Question. Prayer. It didn't matter. Because he had Dean back.

That his brother wasn't answering him worried Sam, but what scared him even more was how Dean was clinging to him. He had both his hands fisted into the front of Sam's shirt, as if he was just as afraid of letting go again as his brother was. This wasn't normal. This wasn't what Dean did. Dean didn't hug, and he didn't cling, and he most certainly didn't act as if he was terrified that something bad was going to happen if he let go of his brother.

But Sam didn't care. Dean was back, and everything else they could deal with. Hell, he was willing to take on the entire world for as long as Dean was back with him. Right now, that was all that mattered.

The grip on his shirtfront tightened, and Sam started to run his hand through Dean's hair, wondering at its wetness, unable to identify it as is own tears which had fallen into his brother's hair.

"It's all right. I've got you. It's going to be okay."

Sam had no idea if it was the truth. If it was even possible. But for the moment it had to be enough.

For this one disconnected moment in time that had Sam clinging to Dean and Dean clinging to Sam, the moment after they had beaten hell, it was enough. Sam would worry about tomorrow when tomorrow came. Not now.

A touch to his arm startled Sam, had him snarling and going for his gun with his right hand while he protectively pressed Dean's head into his shoulder with his left.

"Whoa kid, it's me."

Bobby. Sam relaxed gradually, took his hand off his gun and immediately brought it around Dean's back again. It was only Bobby. He felt Dean's grip on his shirt tighten at the sound of Bobby's voice just as if he was scared. But that could not be, because this was Dean, and Dean wasn't scared of many things, and most certainly Dean wasn't scared of Bobby.

"It's okay."

Sam looked up as Bobby crouched down in front of him, not even sparing a glance at the younger Winchester brother. His eyes were focused on Dean alone, and Sam could easily identify the mixture of raw emotions in the older hunter's blue eyes – astonishment, disbelief, joy, and a slight trace of something that could be fear, or worry.

"Sam, what…"

"He's alive."

Bobby nodded. "I can see that."

"What does that mean?"

Bobby nodded towards Dean's leg. "He's bleeding."

Sam tried to disentangle himself from his brother to get a better look at what Bobby meant, but Dean was clinging to him so fiercely that it was a struggle to withdraw even a little. But if Dean was bleeding, Sam needed to see. He finally managed to turn around enough to get a look at his brother's leg. It was hard to miss what Bobby had been talking about. There was a red stain of blood on Dean's jeans-clad leg, right above the cut that Sam had stitched up two days earlier.

Dean had no longer been bleeding by the time Sam had stitched up his wounds. But of course Sam had only stitched up the wound and large gashes, it was entirely possible that he had missed stitching up a wound below the surface.

Sam's heart started beating at twice its normal pace from one moment to the next as he tried to push Dean far enough away to get a good look at his chest and torso. But Dean still clung to Sam in a death grip, refusing to let go. It was a struggle to push Dean back just a little without hurting him. And it hurt Sam even worse doing this when Dean so obviously for the first time in years needed someone to physically hold on to, but he needed to see where his brother was hurt. He eventually managed to push Dean back a little, but the distressed sound that escaped his brother's lips felt like a stab into Sam's heart.

There was blood on Dean's t-shirt, as well. Not much, but a slowly growing stain soaking through the grey fabric. Without thinking, Sam pressed one hand on the wound and pulled Dean close again with the other.

"We need to get him to a hospital."

Bobby nodded. "I'll call 911."

"No!" Sam shook his head and jutted his chin out at the bodies lying strewn around the room. "We don't have time to clean up this mess before an ambulance arrives. Just get the car, we'll drive him to the hospital."

Bobby nodded and without saying anything else got up from his crouch and hurried out of the room, leaving Sam alone right where he was, sitting on the hardwood floor in the doorway of Bobby's living room. Alone with his thoughts, and with Dean still clinging to him.

And that was still what scared Sam the most about this situation. Dean still gave no sign of being completely conscious, but even in a half conscious state his brother would normally fight all forms of physical comfort. Sam had dealt with an injured Dean more often than he cared to remember. He had dragged him, sometimes carried him to safety, had stitched him up, dressed wounds and dealt with all other kinds of injuries. Those ministrations Dean had always accepted as the necessity they were. But this was something else entirely.

This was pure desperation. A desperate attempt from Dean to ground himself in reality, to hold on to something. And that was a need Dean had always denied. Denied towards Sam, but also denied himself. And it scared Sam more than he cared to admit that right now Dean was showing these raw emotions.

Sam wasn't used to handling this. Ever since they had been children, it had been Dean's job to chase away the monsters and the demons, the ones that couldn't be beaten by rock salt and holy water. Sam wasn't used to being the steady anchor. He was willing with all his heart to be there for Dean now, but fact was that he wasn't equipped to handle this. He didn't know what to do.

He had absolutely no clue what he was supposed to do.

Running his free hand through Dean's hair, Sam began rocking them again, back an forth. The words came automatically, a steady flow of nonsense in the hope that the sound of his voice would be enough for Dean, because it was all he had to offer.

"It's all right. We're going to get you to the hospital now, everything is going to be all right. I'm here, I've got you."

"…am."

Sam felt his eyes burn at his brother's attempt to say his name.

"Yes Dean, I'm here. It's all right."

Dean relaxed marginally, though he maintained a firm grip on Sam's shirt. Sam still had his hand pressed against the wound on Dean's chest, relieved that the blood flow seemed to be minimal. But with as much blood as Dean had already lost, that was a blessing. He certainly couldn't afford to lose much more.

"Sam."

It was Dean's voice, but weak and broken like Sam had never heard it before. He tried to smile through his own conflicting emotions.

"I'm here. We'll get you to the hospital. I won't let anything happen to you."

At that moment, the front door opened again and Bobby stepped into the room. Dean flinched at the sound of boots on the hardwood floor, but Sam quickly shushed him by pressing his head more firmly into his shoulder.

"Car's ready. Do you need help?"

Bobby made a step towards them, but Sam quickly waved the older man off. In his current state, Dean probably wouldn't allow anybody to touch him anyway, and Sam was unwilling to release even the slightest part of taking care of his brother to somebody else.

"I've got it covered, Bobby."

He turned back towards Dean. "I'll get you to the car now, all right?" Dean didn't react, so Sam simply assumed that his brother had understood. "I've got to move you. I'm trying not to hurt you, all right? I'll be careful."

Rearranging himself without jarring Dean's injuries any further was difficult, but somehow Sam managed to get one arm under his brother's knees and the other arm around Dean's back. Slowly, he got to his feet. Standing directly next to Sam, Dean always seemed short, but he was still 6'1'' of muscle that weren't easily lifted, even by his taller brother. Sam stumbled a little in an attempt to keep his balance while getting up, but he quickly shook his head at Bobby who took another step in their direction.

"It's all right, I've got him."

Bobby nodded.

"I've got you," Sam repeated, more for himself than for his brother, as he made sure that he had a good hold on Dean and started towards the door.

Sam was a little surprised to see that it was the Impala Bobby had parked as close to the front door as possible. He had expected the Crown Vic, but of course that was still parked somewhere on the dirt road that ran along the back of Bobby's property.

So it was the Impala.

Sam was about to drive in the Impala, and he had Dean back. It was closer to being home than Sam had dared to dream about for the past days. Bobby opened the back door of the car, and together the two men somehow managed to get Dean into it without jarring him around too much.

Dean was too tall to fit lying into the backseat, but Sam took great care to leave Dean's injured leg outstretched so that he wouldn't tear the entire wound open again. That way he ended up with most of Dean's upper body in his lap, but with the way Dean was still clinging to him that would have been their sitting arrangement, anyway.

"It's okay," Sam repeated, feeling every bit like a broken record. "We'll get you help, we'll be at the hospital in no time."

Dean remained silent, a tense weight clinging to Sam in their cramped up position in the back seat. Bobby started the car and pulled out of his yard, but Sam didn't even raise his head to look out the window. As long as Bobby got them to the hospital as quickly as possible, they could drive through a wall of fire for all that he cared. It didn't matter.

What mattered now was Dean. And Sam's own fear. Too much had happened over the past minutes and hours for Sam to think much about anything. There had only been time to act and react. But now, in the relative silence and calm of the car, it all started catching up with him rapidly.

Ruby had betrayed him. It shouldn't surprise him, not really. She was a demon, and Dean and Bobby had never trusted her. But Sam had seen no other choice but to trust her. He had put so many hopes into her help that her betrayal had come seemingly out of nowhere. He had let his guard down, that was the only reason why all this had happened.

And it had been her plan all along to get Lilith out of the way and break the other demon's deal on Dean's soul. Probably Sam should be grateful for that because it had brought his brother back to him. Sam still didn't understand how exactly that had happened, and he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he couldn't help the small knot of worry in his stomach when he thought about all the possible implications of what had happened.

_The brother you've known for all your life? He's gone._

He couldn't stop Ruby's words from repeating over and over in his head. She had planned on bringing Dean back because she had plans for him. Sam knew better now than to trust Ruby, or even a single word she said, but what if this one time she had been telling the truth? What if Dean had come back changed? He definitely wasn't behaving like the Dean Sam had known for his whole life right now.

_That's what hell does._

But maybe that was it. Hell. Dean had been to hell, so all that musing wouldn't help Sam now, anyway. His brother had been to hell. Whatever standards Sam had to judging his brother's behavior, they no longer applied. Not until Dean was conscious and coherent again and Sam knew what exactly they were dealing with. Until then, all he could do was keep Dean alive and keep Ruby away from him.

_Dean is destined for so much more. Bigger things. Great, horrible, beautiful things._

Not if Sam had a say in it. This time, it was his turn to become the human brick wall between his brother and all the hell spawn that was out to get him. Dean had done the same for him, without hesitation. It was time to reciprocate. Time for Sam to take care of his big brother, whatever it took. However long it was going to take.

Sam checked on Dean's wound again, eliciting another sound of distress from his brother as he moved him around slightly. The bloodstains on Dean's shirt and jeans had grown yet another little bit, and there was a thin sheen of sweat on Dean's forehead.

Bobby cast a look over his shoulder after he turned a corner, alerted by the small cry of pain that had come from Dean's lips.

"How's he holding up?"

Sam had no idea. For now, Dean seemed to be holding on, but he needed a doctor right now. He had lost too much blood. He had been dead for two days, for crying out loud. If that didn't require medical help, Sam didn't know what did.

He looked up and met Bobby's eyes in the rear view mirror.

"Floor it."

* * *

Kudos to moogsthewriter. Yes, you were spot on with your guess. There simply couldn't be anybody but Dean shouting "Hey!" in that particular situation. He has done that so often on the show when he was trying to distract a spirit/creature/whatever from attacking Sam. It had to be his first words.

As for anybody who might be worried about Dean's conition and behaviour after coming back, there will be ore on that in the next chapter.

Thanks for reading, and as always please let me know what you think. I live off reviews. Thanks a lot.


	18. Awakening

Thanks for all your reviews and support for this story so far! This chapter once more took a bit longer to get out, but I make you a deal - it's much longer than all other chapters before ;-) The standard disclaimers apply, as do the usual spoiler warnings. Specific spoilers in this one for "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things".

Hope you enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 16 – Awakening**

The drive to Sioux City Mercy Medical Center was a blur to Sam. Not that he paid much attention to where they were driving. The first time he looked up was when the driver's side door slammed shut as Bobby got out of the car, and by then they were already in the hospital parking lot.

They must have made quite a sight as they entered the emergency room – Bobby with half his face covered in blood and his clothes still wet from that imprompty exorcism under the shower, and Dean a limp weight in Sam's arms. Fortunately, doctors were used to seeing a lot of things and didn't ask too many questions when people came into the emergency room covered in blood. At least not initially, and until Dean got help Sam wasn't ready to answer any questions, anyway. Before Sam knew what was happening, an orderly and a doctor helped him put Dean on a gurney. Sam knew that Dean was going to get help here, but letting go of his brother right now was the hardest thing he had ever done. It was only the thought that Dean needed help which Sam couldn't provide that made him relent and let the doctor take over, and even then it left a hollow feeling inside of him.

He barely listened to whatever story Bobby came up with to explain Dean's injuries, and why they had already been stitched up. All Sam was focused on was Dean's face, unwilling to let his brother out of his sight now that he had already given up his physical hold of him. But then the unthinkable happened.

They took Dean away.

Sam had been in the hospital often enough, he should have known. But somehow, this time he hadn't considered the fact that family members weren't allowed in the treatment area. By the time he realized what was happening, the doors had already slammed in his face and an orderly gently but firmly told him where to find the waiting room.

It had all gone much too fast for Sam to understand what the hell was happening here. It felt as if he was the only one moving in real time in a movie that was put on fast forward.

They had taken Dean away from him.

That was probably the worst thing of them all. For the past two days, Sam had been on a constant adrenaline high trying to save his brother's soul and ultimately his life. But now he had to retreat to the sidelines and hope for somebody else to finish what he had started. It was out of his hands now. He had submitted Dean into the hands of strangers, not even an hour after he had gotten him back from hell.

And it felt wrong. Sam knew that rationally, it was the best choice to let somebody with a medical degree take care of Dean now. But he couldn't help himself. The mere thought about leaving Dean with strangers made an anxious knot form in his stomach that nothing could dissolve. Nothing but seeing Dean. And knowing what Sam did about hospitals, that could take a while.

It was a small blessing that the emergency room's waiting room was pretty much empty when Sam and Bobby entered. The last thing Sam thought he could deal with right now were other people around him, other people who were also waiting for news on their loved ones. He could barely deal with his own emotions, he most certainly didn't need to witness anybody else's suffering on top of that.

The nurse who was manning the emergency room's main desk, however, seemed to see the empty ER as an affront to her professional capacities. When her eyes fell on Sam and Bobby, she seemed to sense that they were her chance to stop her night from becoming boring. The first thing she did was to commandeer Bobby over into a curtained off area to get have the resident on night-shift treat to the cut above his eyebrow. Her no-nonsense voice left no room for argument, and before Sam knew what was happening Bobby was gone and Sam was holding a clipboard with Dean's admission forms to fill out.

And he did, automatically. He just picked up the pen and started writing. It beat thinking, and it beat facing all the thoughts racing through his mind right now.

It was something to distract him from the agonizing wait, and sooner or later the hospital would have asked for Dean's insurance information anyway. He'd have to ask Bobby to bring back Dean's wallet with the insurance card, but for now he could make sure that his brother was taken good care of. Insurance had always been a big problem with the life they had led. It was the reason why they treated as many injuries themselves as they could and only went to the hospital when it was absolutely necessary.

Credit card scams were one thing – they took some finesse, some bluntness and a lot of luck. If you knew how to work them, it wasn't that hard. But insurance scams were a whole other league – and Dean's legal status over the past years hadn't made that any easier. If either Winchester brother was in a bad enough condition to end up in the hospital, for the most part it wasn't a simple check in, get treatment and check out. But a longer hospital stay meant more time for the insurance scam to be discovered.

That was why Sam had finally thrown caution in the wind and had taken over the organization in that department. In fact, he had taken the leap into the highly illegal and had insisted on both Dean and him getting insurance that was fool-proof. Dean always pretended not to care, but Sam needed the secure feeling that if it came to the worst and one of them was seriously injured, they didn't need to worry about insurance on top of everything else.

It had been just one of those illegal things he had always reproached his brother and father for, but that had been the old Sam. The old Sam who had thought that getting away from hunting would somehow manage to take the hunter out of him. Now he knew better. And over the past years Sam had come to realize that with the life they led, a certain degree of illegality could not be avoided, not if they wanted to have all their bases covered. Some degree of security was necessary in their lives.

So now he and Dean both held one medical insurance card that ran on a real name, for an existing person with a real social security number who matched their age and even the first name. It had taken a few days of research in county records, and was identity theft at the highest level. But Sam figured since both their namesakes were deceased, they weren't going to complain.

And neither was Sam, not if it helped save Dean's life.

So far, they had been reluctant to use those insurance cards for minor injuries, not sure if they were going to work more than once. Nothing but unpaid medical bills to make sure that an insurance company discovered that their client had actually been dead for over twenty years. But right now, Sam was going to make sure that his brother used that insurance.

Being mauled by hellhounds, dying and going to hell justified insurance that covered all examinations and treatments. Definitely. Sam didn't care if Dean would call it a waste of resources later on. So Sam filled out the forms under the name of Dean Matthews, mechanically filled in all the important information, and once he was done handed the clipboard back to the nurse on the duty station.

She took it with a nod and put it down on her desk.

"You should get that checked out."

Sam had already turned around, but upon hearing the nurse speak to her he pivoted back into his previous position.

"What do you mean?"

The nurse nodded towards his arm with her head.

"Your wrist. I don't know what happened, but with that swelling there could be a fracture. I'm just saying you might want to get some X-rays done."

Sam shook his head. "I'll wait for news on my brother."

The nurse got up from her chair and Sam automatically took a step back. The last time that woman had left her post behind her desk, Bobby had gone to get himself treated without so much as a word of protest. And in a man who was used to stitching up far worse injuries by himself, even after substantial blood-loss, that was worrisome behavior. Sam didn't know what it was, and although he was fairly sure that the woman in front of him was no psychic with the power of mind-control, she radiated all the authority that a fiftyish slightly heavyset nurse with her graying hair tied together in a tight bun could possibly radiate.

"Now listen to me, young man. Your brother's examination is going to take a while longer. So you can either sit here and wait, and get your hand examined later on at a time when you could be visiting him, or you can get it done now. But I can guarantee you that with a swelling that bad, you're going to need an examination sooner or later. Now what's it going to be?"

Sam stared at the woman in front of him for a few seconds, but although he had about a foot and a half in height on her, the woman didn't back down. Finally he sighed.

"Just an X-ray."

The nurse flashed a smile and gestured towards the curtained off area where Bobby had vanished earlier.

"Go in there, I'll send in a resident to examine your hand."

When Sam hesitated to comply immediately, her gaze softened somewhat. "You'll be back long before there's news on your brother, I promise."

So Sam went to get his wrist examined. Truth be told, he hadn't even noticed the swelling. Of course he had noticed the pain. It was hard to ignore the pain, his wrist had hurt the whole time since that demon had knocked the knife out of his hand back in that motel room, but there really had been more important things to worry about. And maybe the examination would help to spend the waiting time more quickly.

Sam knew what a broken wrist felt like. It wasn't the first time, after all. Not after Dean had used him for bait and that zombie chick had thrown him to the ground back in Greenville, Illinois. He had broken his wrist back then, and truth be told it hadn't felt much different than his wrist felt now.

He really didn't need to wait for one of the night shift residents to finish his examination to know that his wrist was broken again. But he silently sat during the five minutes of poking and prodding that led him to believe that this particular resident might have done well with an additional year or two in med school. Maybe a course in bedside manner to round off his education.

Sam was only glad that the doctor only examined his wrist and didn't ask him to take off his shirt. He'd be hard-pressed to come up with a good explanation for the nearly healed cut across his chest. Ruby's Wiccan remedy had done a small wonder on helping him heal, but if Sam had the choice right now he only wanted to wash the stuff off. The mere thought that it had come from Ruby made his skin itch where her salve was still covering it. He didn't want anything that had to do with her on him, even if it had probably saved his life. The whole charade in the motel room had been a setup anyway, saving his life had just been another part of Ruby's sick and twisted plan. He wouldn't have gotten hurt if it hadn't been part of Ruby's plan.

And Sam felt sick at the thought that he had unwittingly played along, and played right into the demon's hands at that.

But taking a shower to wash Ruby's medicine off was not a choice right now. Not until he knew that Dean was going to be all right. Only then there was a chance of getting a shower, some change of clothes, and some sleep.

Sam was sent down one floor to get an X-ray of his hand done, and an agonizing wait of thirty minutes later the young doctor finally examined the X-rays and came to the same conclusion that Sam had come to – his wrist was broken.

Sam wanted to punch the doctor when he told him in an all too cheerful tone that it wasn't a bad break and that immobilizing the wrist for a few weeks should do the trick. Just because he wasn't delivering a death verdict didn't mean the guy had to act as if he was the protagonist in a standup comedy routine. Sam knew the procedures on stabilizing a broken wrist, he'd much rather be upstairs waiting for news on Dean than sit here and listen to the young man's failed attempts at trying to cheer him up. He wasn't a kid, he didn't need cheering up.

He needed to know how his brother was doing.

Due to the swelling Sam was fitted with a Velcro brace that stabilized his arm and wrist instead of a cast, and was finally released to go back to the ER waiting room. It were just a few steps, but it was all Sam could do not to run the short distance. He found Bobby sitting alone in a chair in the far off corner, face clean and the cut above his eyebrow held together by three butterfly tapes. Sam immediately hurried over to the older hunter, breath held in anticipation.

"Any news?"

Bobby shook his head. "No, nothing."

Sam ran his hands through his hair in frustration and looked over towards the nurse, but she was busy talking on the phone and didn't meet his gaze.

"Sit down before you fall down, kid."

Sam nodded numbly and sank down into the chair beside Bobby.

"How's the wrist?"

Sam shrugged. "Broken. It's not that bad."

Bobby accepted that statement with a gruff sound coming from the back of his throat and didn't try to strike up any additional conversation. Sam was glad for it. He didn't particularly feel like talking right now.

As he stared down at the grey linoleum floor, he felt the exhaustion of the past days catch up with him. He was running out of adrenaline, and now that he thought about it, he didn't know when he had last eaten something or slept through a night, save those hours of unconsciousness after that demon had cut him open. He was beat, his body wanted nothing more than to shut down and sleep for a week. But his brain refused to follow. With Bobby sitting silently beside him, the grey linoleum floor became the screen as the nightmare of the past days started to replay in front of Sam's eyes.

The study in New Hope where Dean had been mauled by hellhounds right in front of his eyes.

Stitching up his brother's torn body at Bobby's house.

The blank and empty look in Dean's eyes as Sam had closed them, his fingers shaking and feeling as if somebody had just torn out half of his heart and he couldn't stop the bleeding.

Ruby's triumphant face as she revealed her plans to Sam, her betrayal and the sinister implication that Dean was nothing but another pawn in her game of duplicity.

_The brother you've known for all your life? He's gone._

_That's what hell does._

_Dean is destined for so much more._

_For bigger things._

_Great, horrible, beautiful things._

Dean's face as he stood in the doorway of Bobby's living room, returned from hell. That was an image Sam wanted to cling to. It was a mental image that Dean was alive in.

"Family of Dean Matthews?"

Sam shot out of his chair so quickly that the doctor in front of him took a startled step backwards.

"Whoa, easy there."

Sam didn't bother wasting time with an apology. "How is my brother?"

The doctor's face softened into a smile. "He's being brought to his room now. You can go up and see him in a little while. But there's a few things I wanted to talk to you about first."

He gestured back towards the chairs and even though Sam wanted nothing more than to run past the man and go see Dean before he faced any possible medical judgment, he somehow found himself sinking back into the uncomfortable plastic chair. The doctor pulled up a chair so that he was facing Sam and Bobby, a clipboard held in his hands. He was a man in his late forties, maybe early fifties with salt and pepper hair that was more grey than black by now. His face looked a little tired, but the pair of brown eyes that was regarding Sam from underneath a pair of bushy eyebrows was lively and wide awake. When he saw Sam's eyes on him, the doctor smiled.

"First things first. I'm Eugene Banks, I've been treating your brother after he was brought here. I have to admit that even in a busy ER you don't see that kind of injuries very often. You said your brother was attacked by a wild dog?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Dean was out hunting with a friend when it happened. They often go hunting in a small cabin, a few hours south of here."

Sam was surprised how much he remembered of the cock and bull story Bobby had come up with earlier to explain Dean's injuries. He hadn't really been listening when the older hunter had told it.

"Did Dean say what kind of dog it was? I've seen wounds from dog attacks before, but I've never seen any claw-marks like these before."

Sam only shrugged. "No. Just that it was a wild dog."

Banks cocked his head to the side. "Must have been one hell of a hound."

Sam resisted the insane urge to laugh. It had definitely been one hell of a hound, but he was not about to tell Banks how close to the mark his words had hit. The doctor looked at him for a moment longer, then he consulted his clipboard.

"And Dean got the wounds stitched up in a clinic?"

Again, Sam nodded. "Yes, that's what he said. They drove to the nearest clinic and he got treated there. He seemed fine when he came home this morning, only a little beat up. And then he suddenly started bleeding again, so we drove here."

Banks leaned back in his chair and put the clipboard across his lap.

"Mr. Mathews,…"

"Sam."

Banks nodded. "Sam. To be honest with you, I cannot explain your brother's injuries. The wounds are consistent with an animal attack, even though I'd have expected to see some bite marks in a dog attack, and not just the claw marks that your brother suffered from. But by the time Dean was brought here, his blood pressure was critically low. The wounds your brother sustained are very deep, and he lost a lot of blood. That the doctors let him leave the clinic in that condition, without giving him a transfusion, was irresponsible."

Sam shrugged. "Dean hates hospitals. I'm sure he didn't want to stay."

"He should still have gotten a transfusion, a saline IV, anything. It's a small wonder he was even able to walk."  
"He can be kinda stubborn."

Banks smiled. "Yeah, I know the type. And in the end it probably saved his life."

Sam felt his heart speed up. "What does that mean?"

"Because his blood pressure was so low, he didn't lose too much blood until you brought him here. We gave him two units of blood and we still have him on an IV. The reason for the bleeding were damaged blood vessels which whoever stitched your brother up must have missed. Maybe there was no bleeding at the time because his blood pressure was too low, I can't tell that anymore. What matters now is that we fixed the bleeders and re-stitched the wounds."

Sam looked up. "All of them?"

Banks nodded. "Yes. We had to open the two wounds that were bleeding anyway, and I wanted to make sure that we didn't have to put your brother through another procedure just because we missed something. And while missing the bleeders and letting your brother leave without replenishing the lost blood was careless to the point of negligent, whoever stitched up those wounds did a good job. There will be minimal scarring, and by now it doesn't seem as if there were any complications ahead. Dean doesn't show any signs of infection, that's a very good thing."

Sam nodded, fighting the urge to tap his fingers against something. If he had truly done such a good job in stitching his brother's wounds, then Dean would not have started bleeding again in the first place. But then again, back when he had placed the stitches he had never thought that Dean's heart would ever start beating again. There had been no reason to look for damaged blood vessels, Sam had only wanted to close up the wounds.

But all that were things he could consider later, if at all. Right now he needed to see Dean, needed to make sure with his own eyes that his brother was going to be all right. Surely it couldn't take that long to get Dean settled in his room. And if Banks was going to keep him for much longer, Sam didn't know what he would do.

The doctor didn't seem to notice Sam's impatience, or maybe years of having this kind of conversation with family members had simply made him immune to it. He seemed comfortable as he leaned back in his chair and continued.

"If it's any consolation – in case your brother was very attached to the tattoo on his chest, it escaped the attack completely intact."

Sam merely nodded silently. The tattoo indeed was important, or had once been important. Right now Sam didn't have any idea whether protection against possession was still anything they needed to worry about. He had no idea what effect going to hell had on possible possession..

Another thought to add to the ever-growing list of things he needed to consider later. Much later. After he had seen Dean.

"I'm fairly sure it will keep on protecting him."

Sam's head snapped up at Banks' words. "What did you say?"

Banks shrugged. "It's a pentagram, isn't it? The tattoo, I mean. A symbol of protection."

Sam was a little taken aback by that knowledge. Most people didn't immediately associate the pentagram with its protective meaning. Most only thought of what they had seen in horror movies, or heard from the wrong sources and took it to be a sign of devil worship.

Banks smiled crookedly. "I have a teenage daughter right in the middle of the rebellious phase of puberty and an extremely worried wife. I've read a book or two about it."

He shook his head as if to clear that thought from his head. "But anyway, you're probably far more worried about your brother. We'll wait for the IV to run through, and we'll keep monitoring him for any signs of infection over the course of the night. Tomorrow morning we'll know more, but for now I'm confident. There's only one thing that I can't quite explain."

Sam's heart started beating twice as fast in his chest. He had been mentally preparing himself for the end of this conversation already, prepared himself to go up and finally see Dean, but it seemed that Banks had saved another bombshell to drop on him.

"What?"

"We don't have the results on Dean's detailed blood work back yet, that's probably going to take until tomorrow morning. But the initial results that we got during the treatment are quite puzzling, to tell you the truth."

_The brother you've known for all your life? He's gone._

Sam wondered vaguely if you could detect traces of hell in a person's blood.

"What is it?"

Banks shrugged and shook his head at the same time. "It's difficult to say. From what you say, Dean has been conscious and aware the entire time since the attack. But the results from his blood tests speak a different language."

_That's what hell does._

Sam was fairly sure that he was going to punch the doctor, no matter how likeable he seemed, if he didn't start making sense soon.

"What is wrong with my brother?"

Sam's voice had gotten sharp, and Banks seemed startled for a moment before he continued.

"Nothing is wrong, per se. But his blood tests didn't show the results I'd have expected to see in somebody who has been awake and whose body has worked normally over the past two days. In fact, and that is the part that I can't quite explain, is that so far his results seem to say that your brother's entire organism has been through a recent kick start."

"What does that mean?"

Sam knew exactly what that meant, of course. Dying and being dead for two days before coming to life again probably was the mother of all kick starts. But in their explanation of Dean's injuries they had left out that part, not knowing that the doctors would find anything wrong with Dean's blood work.

Banks shrugged. "Test results can be deceiving. If your brother was awake and coherent, then of course his body didn't shut down completely. Had he been in a coma, or suffered from a prolonged cardiac arrest, those results would make sense. I'm only telling you about this because we're monitoring your brother closely right now, and we'll be doing some more detailed tests on him tomorrow morning. When you go up to see him, don't let all the equipment shock you. He'd be fine even if somebody pulled the plug on all the machines. Your brother's condition is stable, the equipment is simply there to alert us should anything about his condition change."

"Can I see him now?"

Sam couldn't keep the impatience from his voice. He slowly got the feeling that if he didn't make his desire to see his brother any clearer, Dr. Banks was going to start another conversation.

Banks flicked back his sleeve to check his watch, then he nodded. "I'd say he should be settled by now. I'll show you up to his room."

Sam practically leapt from his chair, and it was all he could do not to start running over towards the elevators. Instead he waited for Banks and Bobby to catch up with him struggling hard not to let his impatience take over his actions. What followed was the longest elevator ride Sam could remember taking, and another agonizing delay when Banks stopped at the nurse's desk to inquire about Dean's room number.

It seemed that now that his brother was back from hell, after Dr. Banks had told him that Dean was all right, that he was going to live, there was still something holding Sam back from actually seeing his brother. It were just minute delays, small things that kept adding up to another minute, another two minutes of patience that Sam didn't possess, but even those short stretches of time summed up to an eternity. It seemed as if even the corridors were stretching as much as they could in a desperate attempt to keep Sam from reaching his brother's side.

But finally Dr. Banks stopped in front of one of the doors and turned towards Sam.

"Room 409, that's your brother's room. He's probably not going to wake up for the rest of the night, but you can go in and see him for a few minutes."

Sam had already had a hand on the doorknob, but upon hearing those words he spun around and faced Dr. Banks again. "I'll stay with him."

Banks sighed. "Your brother is in good hands, Sam. I'm fairly sure that he's not going to wake up until tomorrow morning. Get some rest, you look as if you need it."

Sam took a step forward – not close enough to be threatening, but just enough to step clearly inside the doctor's personal space. At 6'4'', he was towering over the smaller man.

"I'm going to stay with my brother."

There was no sharpness in Sam's voice, but an underlying determination that left no room for argument. To Banks' credit, the man didn't flinch or step back, but he regarded Sam warily for a long moment before he finally nodded.

"All right. But keep in mind that your brother needs rest."

Banks reached out and opened the door, then he gestured for Sam to step inside. "If there's anything you need, just press the call button and a nurse will come immediately. But your brother should sleep peacefully for the rest of the night. I'll check in again tomorrow morning."

"Thanks doctor."

Banks smiled and nodded at Sam and Bobby in turn, then he left down the corridor.

"Let's go in."

Bobby shook his head at Sam's words. "You go in and sit with Dean, kid. I've got to clean up the mess in my living room, and I need to get out of these soaked clothes. And there's a chance that brother of yours isn't going to kill us if I at least try and get those blood stains out of the back seat."

Sam very nearly laughed. He hadn't cared about it during their drive to the hospital, but it was very likely that Dean's wounds had bled on the back seat during their drive here. And Dean was going to freak out if there were blood stains on the leather seat of the Impala. It was a thought that made Sam want to laugh out loud. Dean screamed and yelled and wanted to tear somebody's head off if there were crumbs lying around in his precious car. Blood on the seat was worthy of an outburst of epic proportions. It would probably be worth leaving the blood stains where they were just to see it. Right now, Sam couldn't think of one negative aspect of Dean throwing a fit. Not a single one. Dean was alive. He could yell at Sam for all he wanted, Sam would probably enjoy it.

He nodded at Bobby. "Okay."

The older man clasped Sam's shoulder for a short moment. "Call if anything happens. I'll come back tomorrow morning with some clothes for Dean."

"Make sure to bring his wallet, they're going to need the insurance card."

"Sure. And now go in there. The corridor isn't looking nice enough to want to spend the night in it."

Bobby gave Sam a gentle shove towards the door, then he turned around and walked down the corridor. Sam drew a deep breath, then he opened the door and stepped inside the hospital room.

Banks had been right, the amount of equipment in the room was shocking. It was all Sam could see at first, the monitors with their readouts that didn't hold any meaning to Sam, the IV pole next to the bed, and quite a number of tubes and wires that sneaked out from underneath the sheet covering his brother's form. In fact, there was only one piece of equipment that held any kind of meaning to Sam, and that was the readout of the heart monitor. Sam's eyes immediately latched onto the spiky green line that was a visible confirmation of Dean's heartbeat, soaking up every reassuring spike.

Earlier, Sam couldn't have possibly gotten into the hospital room fast enough, but now that he was approaching the bed his steps grew hesitant.

Banks had said that Dean was going to be all right. But even that comforting thought didn't really help Sam as he stepped up towards the bed. It was one thing to believe the doctor's words, but it was another thing entirely to see Dean lying in that hospital bed right now. Sam had seen his brother in hospital a few times, in various conditions. And nothing ever managed to scare Sam as badly as seeing his otherwise always so strong brother reduced to being so weak that he couldn't heal on his own. It scared the shit out of Sam.

And now it was no different seeing Dean lying on that bed, the thin sheet drawn up to his waist. Dean was still so pale. Banks had said that they had given Dean blood, hadn't he? But if he had received blood transfusions, why was he still looking so pale?

Dean was connected to all the equipment standing around the bed through various tubes and cables, none of which held any meaning to Sam, but they created a steady hum in the room that at least drowned out a little of the silence that marked the absence of his brother's voice.

Dean's eyes were closed, lids seeming paper-thin over his unmoving eyeballs as he lay there in a probably drug induced sleep. Banks had seemed pretty sure that Dean was going to sleep through the night, so it stood to reason that he was on medication, maybe even under a slight sedation. Slowly, Sam stepped up to the bed and took his first closer look at his brother.

If it weren't for the reassuring beeping of the heart monitor, one quick look at Dean's face wouldn't have been enough to assure himself that Dean was still alive. His face was still so pale. Sam thought if he only stared at it for long enough, he could count the freckles standing out on his brother's skin. But he was breathing, without any artificial aid. What was it that Banks had said? All the equipment was only there to monitor Dean's condition. Even if somebody unplugged all of it, Dean was going to be okay. It certainly didn't look like it, but the doctor's words were a promise Sam was clinging to.

There was a chair standing against one of the walls, and Sam stepped away from his brother's side for a moment to pull it up to the bed. So what if Dean was not going to wake up for the rest of the night, what if the doctors had him sedated, Sam was not going to leave. He was going to stay by Dean's side, and he was not going to miss his brother's first signs of awareness.

But even sitting beside the bed like that, the painful knot of anticipation and fear in Sam's stomach didn't dissolve. Dean lying motionless in the hospital bed looked far too similar to Dean lying lifeless on the bed in Bobby's house. As his eyelids got heavier, Sam's tired mind started overlapping the images, blurred the image of a living Dean with the image of his brother's dead and cold body, scaring him awake whenever his eyes threatened to fall close.

Sam's body needed rest, but his mind refused to play along. His mind didn't allow him to shift down a few gears.

Sam knew that if he was awake, Dean would laugh himself silly about him. He'd call him a sissy and make more than just one joke about it, he'd never let him hear the end of it, but Sam was beyond caring at this point. He reached for Dean's hand, mindful of the clip attached to his brother's index finger, and took it into his own. Dean's skin was warm under Sam's fingers, and finally Sam felt the tight anxious feeling inside of him loosen up somewhat. Dean was going to wake up. The doctors had promised him that Dean was going to wake up. He only needed a little more patience.

With Dean's limp left hand held tightly in his own, Sam brought his right hand up to cover the pendant that still hung around his neck, and leaned back in the chair. It was going to be a long night.

The next thing that filtered into Sam's awareness was a groan.

He shot upright in his chair, disoriented, blinking frantically against the onslaught of brightness as he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened. The memories came rushing back as soon as Sam realized that he was in the hospital, that he had fallen asleep despite his best intentions to keep watch over his brother. And as soon as the memories came back, Sam quickly forgot the last remnants of his weird and disjointed dream and his eyes immediately turned towards the bed.

Dean was still lying on his back, but his head was turned to the side, there was a deep frown etched into his face and his eyes were moving restlessly behind closed lids.

"Dean?"

Sam leaned forward in his chair, ignoring the strain from his back muscles that were cramped after a long night in the uncomfortable chair. It all flooded in at once, the fact that the room was bright with early morning daylight which meant that he had slept through the entire night, but all that information passed through his brain without conscious thought. His entire attention was focused on Dean.

"Dean, are you awake?"

Dean's head instinctively turned into the direction of his brother's voice, and after a few seconds his lashes started to flutter as he struggled to open his eyes. It seemed that his lids were weighed down, and when his brother's green eyes were finally open they stared ahead somewhat unfocusedly.

Sam rose slightly from his chair and bent over the bed.

"Dean?"

Slowly, his brother's eyes turned towards Sam, and he blinked a few times as if trying to bring the face of the person leaning above him into focus. It took some endless seconds, but then his brother's eyes settled on Sam's face.

"Sam?"

Dean's voice was rough and hoarse, and far weaker than Sam had heard it in a long time, but Sam didn't think he had ever enjoyed hearing it more.

"Yeah, it's me."

Dean looked at him for a few seconds longer, then his eyes darted to the left and right, taking in the surroundings of the room around him.

"Where…?"

"We're in the hospital. In Sioux City."  
A frown settled on Dean's face as he quite obviously struggled to remember what had happened to bring him here. The frown only deepened as Dean's brain failed to come up with a good explanation.

He drew a breath to say something, but all that came out was a hoarse croak that seemed to hurt his throat even further. The sound turned into a cough, which in turn quickly evolved into a coughing fit. The coughing as such wasn't that bad, but lying down Dean didn't seem to be getting enough air, and from the pained grimace on Dean's face the coughing and tension in his chest pulled the stitches on his stomach. For a fleeting moment Sam considered pressing the call button to call for a nurse, but then he mentally smacked himself.

This was no life threatening situation, no internal bleeding or anything. Just a sore throat acting up, and Dean would probably kick him if he called in a nurse for something like that. Dean had never liked it when people made a fuss about him. So Sam quickly put his free hand between Dean's shoulder blades and helped him into a halfway upright position while the coughing fit lasted. It probably wasn't the most comfortable position considering the large amount of stitches covering his brother's front, but for now it was important that Dean was getting enough air.

When the coughing fit was finally over and Dean was breathing normally again, Sam gently lowered his brother back onto the mattress. Dean swallowed, grimacing at the feeling of his sore throat, then he sank back in his pillow with a sigh.

Sam reached for the water pitcher on the nightstand and filled a plastic cup with water.

"Are you all right, Dean?"

Dean's green eyes turned towards Sam again, confusion evident in the look he gave his younger brother.

"What the hell?"

Sam couldn't help it. He had absolutely no idea why, but upon those hoarsely whispered words coming out of his brother's mouth it all burst out of him. Everything that he had held back over the past days, while he had been running on fear, adrenaline and a flimsy hope. He just couldn't help himself. He had been bottling up far too much for far too long, and now he simply couldn't hold it all in anymore.

He started laughing.

* * *

Once more, thanks for reading. And please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	19. Subtle Shifts

So here is the next chapter, the one I hope you have been waiting for. Dean finally makes his reappearance - and I for one am glad that he made it this far.

Specific spoilers for "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" in this chapter, otherwise the usual spoiler warnings apply. Thanks once more to Isis-SG1 for reading this through for me and checking Dean's tone. It's astonishing, but I really haven't written that much Dean dialogue before, so this chapter was kind of a challenge for me.

I hope you enjoy!

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**Chapter 17 – ****Subtle Shifts**

_What the hell?_

Of all the things Dean could pick as his first words after waking up, he asked _what the hell_.

_Hell_.

It was simply too much. Before Sam knew what was happening the laughter was rising up inside of him and burst out.

He didn't even know what he was laughing about.

There was nothing at all funny about hell, nothing.

But it was such a Dean thing to say, delivered in such a Dean way of saying it that Sam couldn't help but burst out laughing. What the hell indeed. Sam had absolutely no idea, but once the laughter started, there was no stopping it.

Dean frowned at him and struggled a little to sit up into a straighter position, but Sam couldn't stop the laughter for long enough to help his brother. It was just too surreal after those days filled with fear, pain and small specks of hope. Sam laughed so hard that his vision blurred and tears started to run down his cheeks. He desperately tried to draw a breath between the hysteric bursts of laughter rising up in his chest, but the breath caught in his throat and the sound that came out was more like a choked sob than a bout of laughter.

"Sam?"

Dean was still struggling to sit up in his bed, and Sam quickly wiped at the wetness on his face with his hand. He didn't really know if he was laughing or crying anymore, and he sucked in deep breaths to stop whatever it was that he was doing. Laughing or crying, either one was a silly reaction right now.

"Sammy?"

Dean's voice was still hoarse, but it was the undertone in it that made Sam struggle even harder to get his overload of emotions under control. It probably wasn't very comforting to wake up in a hospital bed and have his brother going into a hysterical fit at his bedside. Sam wiped at his face again and drew a couple of deep breaths.

"I'm okay."

"You sure?"

Sam nodded in an attempt to reassure. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"Because you're freaking me out here, man."

"No seriously, Dean. I'm all right."

"All right? Dude, you're holding my hand. That's not exactly what I'd call all right. Why are you holding my hand?"

Sam looked down and was in fact a little surprised to find that his hand was still lying atop of Dean's. He knew for a fact that he had held the water pitcher with both hands earlier, so he must have returned his hand to this position without conscious thought. Sam wouldn't exactly call it holding his brother's hand, though. There was a definite difference between holding somebody's hand and establishing some sort of physical contact to make sure that the other person was still alive. That was all he had been doing, assuring himself that Dean was still alive.

"Sam?"

Sam looked up from their hands and met his brother's eyes.

"What?"

"Either you propose and dish out a ring, or you finally let go of my hand. This is getting creepier by the minute."

Sam laughed falsely, not at all like the hysterical fit he had thrown earlier, and withdrew his hand. He and his brother had never been big on physical comfort, they had outgrown that a long time ago. But right now letting go of his brother's hand was much harder than Sam ever remembered it being. But he withdrew his hand and placed it limply in his lap.

"Sorry. How are you feeling?"

Dean raised his eyebrows and looked around the room as if the answer to that question should be obvious.

"I'm in the hospital. I wake up and the first thing I see is my brother clinging to my hand like a freshman to his first prom-date, laughing his ass off. So yeah, I guess you could sum it up to say that I'm confused."

Sam wiped at his face again and brushed his hair out of his eyes. "It's a long story."

"I got time. Help me sit up."

The sentence was delivered off-handedly, more like a request than a plea for aid, but Sam knew that his brother would have never asked for his assistance in any way if he could manage to do it on his own. That he couldn't sit up under his own power probably irritated the heck out of Dean.

Sam leaned forward and with a bit of gentle prodding and an even bigger bit of brute force managed to work the mechanism to lift the head of the bead up a few inches. He didn't raise Dean into a fully sitting position however, not with all those stitches on his chest and torso. Sitting would only put an unnecessary strain on them, and knowing his brother Dean would rather sit uncomfortably for the next couple of hours than ask for help again.

"How much do you remember?" Sam asked as he picked up the glass of water he had poured earlier. Dean was just about to take it when his eyes fell on the Velcro brace around his brother's wrist. The water and Sam's question all but forgotten, Dean reached for Sam's arm and carefully grabbed it right above the brace, pulling the arm towards himself determinedly. Sam could have easily fought his brother off in his current state, but that wouldn't achieve anything. Dean had already seen that he was injured, and he wasn't going to let it go until he had answers. He had that pit-bull mentality of not letting go until he had exactly the answers he wanted, especially when questions of Sam's health were concerned. So Sam allowed his brother to pull his arm closer for inspection.

"What happened?"

"I broke my wrist. It's no big deal."

Dean raised both eyebrows and eyed Sam's wrist encased in the brace as if he could double-check the doctor's diagnosis that way.

"No big deal? It's your right wrist, Sam. And how did you manage to break it, _again_, anyway? Been playing hide and seek with another zombie chick?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "No, that's not what happened."

Dean released his brother's hand, finally giving Sam the chance to hand over the glass of water. Dean took it but made no move to drink.

"Then what did happen?"

"It's a long story, Dean."

"Better start talking then. We're not getting any younger here."

Sam shook his head. "Maybe I should get a doctor first."

"Sam, start spilling or I swear I'll…"

Dean was interrupted by a knock on the door. Sam immediately spun around, his hand automatically going to the waistband of his jeans where he normally had his gun tucked away. But he relaxed the moment he saw that it was only Bobby who came into the room. Contrary to the last time Sam had seen him, Bobby looked far better now. He was wearing dry and clean clothes, for one, the ever-present cap was back on his face, and he looked as if he had gotten a few hours of sleep in between cleaning up the mess in his house and the blood in Dean's car. In his hand, Bobby was carrying two takeout cups of coffee in one hand, and as his eyes fell on the bed his expression lightened remarkably.

"Hey Bobby." Sam greeted.

"Morning Sam." Bobby stepped up to the bed and put the two cups of coffee down on the pivotable tray beside Dean's bed. Sam couldn't quite read the expression on Bobby's face as he was looking at Dean, but there was still just as much astonished disbelief in that gaze as the previous evening when he had first seen Dean again. Dean was meeting the older hunter's gaze with a very confused expression of his own. That didn't change when Bobby put a hand on Dean's shoulder and squeezed it tightly.

"It's good to see you, kid."

Dean's eyes followed Bobby's hand, then he looked up again at the older man with both eyebrows raised.

"Erm…thanks. Good to see you too, Bobby."

Bobby released Dean's shoulder after a few moments, and Dean immediately turned back towards his brother.

"Okay, this has officially crossed the border to creepy, and I mean the even for us kind of creepy."

"Calm down, Dean."

"Calm down? You want me to calm down? First you throw a hissy fit, then Bobby goes all Daddy Walton on me, Sam! That's not exactly what I'd call normal, and believe me that my definition of normal already goes way beyond that of most other people. So what in the name of John Bonham's rotting corpse happened to me?"

Sam briefly wondered just how much Dean remembered. Even if he had no idea at all about the whole dying and going to hell part of what had happened to him, he had to remember their trip to New Hope and how they had tried to stop Lilith. And if he remembered that, then somebody as clever as Dean should be able to put two and two together. His countdown had run out, yet here he was, alive and kicking. That was bound to raise some questions.

And Dean remembered both Sam and Bobby, not to mention the dead drummer of Led Zeppelin, which meant that his memory seemed to be working just fine. In all honesty, Sam didn't want to be the one to explain everything that had happened to his brother. He didn't want to open that particular can of worms.

"Sam?"

Sam sighed. "As I said, it's a long story."

"Damn it Sammy, spare me the broken record crap! Something obviously happened to freak you out like that, and my head isn't in the right state to put it all together right now, so you better start spilling."

Dean was getting pissed, which wasn't the best mood to start the explanations his brother wanted to hear. Sam turned towards Bobby in search for help, but for the second time that morning this help came from an unexpected source. There was another knock on the door, and a second or two later the door opened and Dr. Banks stepped into the room.

He, too, looked a lot less tired than he had done the previous night. The lines of fatigue had vanished from his face, and even though Sam had no idea why he noticed it, the doctor was also wearing a different shirt underneath his white coat, testimony to the fact that he had gotten a few hours of sleep and a change of clothes over the course of the night.

Banks nodded at Sam and Bobby, then approached the bed with a smile.

"Good morning Mr. Matthews."

Sam kept looking at Dr. Banks, but he felt his brother's heated glare burn into him. So now Dean knew that Sam had used their one failsafe, _use only in case of complete and utter disaster_-insurance, and was asking himself why. Sam mentally added a tirade about wasting resources to the list of things he expected for the day, but he was willing to battle Dean on this one. Nothing short of an insurance that was sure to cover every possible examination and treatment was going to cut it after his brother had died and come back.

"I'm Eugene Banks," Banks continued. "I've been the attending physician when you were brought to the ER yesterday evening."

Dean nodded wordlessly, obviously waiting for the part of the conversation that would tell him something new. Banks took a step closer to the bed and picked up Dean's chart from its holder on the foot end.

"We had to treat you for internal bleedings that had been missed during the initial repair done to the wounds on your chest and legs. Your blood pressure was critically low and we had to give you transfusions to get it back up to normal levels again." He looked up at the clear plastic bag attached to the IV-pole beside Dean's bed. "We need to check your blood pressure again, but my best estimate is that this was the last of the transfusions you needed. There's no sign of infection so far, but I'd like to run some additional blood tests to make sure. But you seem to be recovering just fine from what I can see. So the big question is, how are you feeling?"

Dean shrugged. "I'm fine."

"Let me rephrase that Mr. Matthews, since I know that with the amount of stitches holding you together, _fine_ isn't in the scope of possibilities right now: Are you in pain, and if yes, how bad is it?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "No pain, doc."

"Mr. Matthews."

"Hey, shouldn't you be relieved if a patient isn't in pain?"

Banks shrugged. "Of course. But I also know when it's possible and when not. And considering your dosage of pain medication, I'd say it's impossible that you're not in some state of discomfort."

Dean raised a hand and pointed a finger at the doctor. "Now we're talking the same language. I never said I was comfortable, just that I'm not in pain. The skin on my chest feels tight and my left leg itches, but that's about it."

Banks raised an eyebrow as he consulted Dean's chart again, and Sam cast an apprehensive glance at his brother. Contrary to Banks, he knew about his brother's unnaturally high tolerance for pain. It didn't mean that Dean didn't feel the same pain that others did, it simply meant that he didn't acknowledge it in the same way. Another thing they had to thank their father's upbringing for – as long as the pain wasn't bad enough to stop you from hunting down the evil son of a bitch, you ignored it. It was a lesson Dean had internalized deeply. Sam guessed that in Dean's current condition, others would have asked for the pain meds minutes ago.

Banks wrote something down on the chart and placed it into its holder again.

"The feeling of tightness comes from the stitches, as does the itching. As I said, there's no sign of infection yet, and to keep it that way you should refrain from scratching or picking on your stitches."

Sam saw Dean roll his eyes and had to stifle a smile. Banks couldn't know that they were both very well aware of how to deal with a stitched wound. Banks didn't notice the glance between the brothers as he continued.

"The itching feeling might get worse as the wound starts healing, but the tight feeling should go away once the healing on your chest progresses. The wounds there were by far worse than the ones on your leg. I already told your brother last night, that dog sure did a number on you."

Dean nodded, his face blank. It was obvious that he still had no idea what Banks was talking about, but was aware that Sam had told the doctor some story of how he had come by his injuries. It wasn't the first time that one of them woke up in the hospital without knowing what story the doctors had been told about the origin of the injuries.

"Yeah."

It was as noncommittal as possible, but Banks' curiosity seemed to win out.

"Do you remember what kind of dog it was? Your brother was only able to tell me that you were attacked by a wild dog on a hunting trip, and while the claw marks are consistent with a wild animal attack I was wondering why there wasn't a single bite mark."

Dean shrugged. "Sorry, doc. It's all a bit fuzzy, to be honest. I don't really remember."

Banks nodded. "Of course. Understandable. Well, whatever happened, I already told your brother that it must have been one hell of a hound that did this to you."

The moment when it all fell into place was visible on Dean's face.

The breath caught in Sam's throat as he saw his brother's expression darken. Sam wanted to punch Banks. Of course the man couldn't have known what it was he was saying, but he could punch him simply for repeating a joke that hadn't been funny the first time around, either.

One hell of a hound.

Hell of a hound.

Hellhound.

Those words had been the trigger Dean's brain had needed to catch up. Dean's eyes turned towards Sam, and Sam quickly looked away, back at Banks, anywhere but at his brother. He couldn't stand that intense gaze right now, the questions that were burning in it, demanding to be answered.

Not now.

Banks looked from one brother to the other with a slight frown on his face, as if he had noticed the subtle shift in the room, the sudden rise of tension, but couldn't quite determine what exactly had happened.

It took a few seconds until Dean tore his eyes away from his brother and looked back at Banks.

"When can I get out of here?"

"Now, I wouldn't advise you to rush things, Mr. Matthews…"

"Doc, with all due respect, it's not the first time that I've had some stitches. I know about wound care, and I feel fine. So when can I get out of here?"

Banks sighed. "I'd like to run some more tests first. The results from your first blood work last night were inconclusive, and I don't feel comfortable releasing you without seeing some results that tell me something about your condition. I'd like to keep you in for at least another twenty-four hours of observation…"

"No chance, doc."

Banks sighed. "Your brother said you could be determined about discharging yourself from hospitals as quickly as possible. But considering that your last discharge against medical advice nearly killed you, I'd say that we run the blood tests, and once I got the results back from the lab we'll talk again. If everything is within normal parameters, we can talk about maybe discharging you this afternoon."

Dean nodded. "Okay."

"Good."

Banks smiled and turned towards the door. "I'm just going to call in a nurse and we'll take a blood sample and do an examination." He looked at Sam. "It'll be just a few minutes, but I have to ask you to leave while we examine your brother."

Under normal circumstances, nothing would have been able to make Sam leave his brother's bedside. But right now, with Dean slowly catching up on what had happened, Sam was quite glad for a chance to leave the room for a while. He still had no idea how he was supposed to even try to explain everything that had happened to his brother. A few extra minutes to figure out just how to do it were very welcome. Sam quickly grabbed the cup of coffee Bobby had gotten for him.

"I'll be back in a few minutes."

"You'd better," Dean grumbled, and it was obvious that he didn't hope for his brother to come back for his company alone. Sam hurried out of the room without meeting his brother's eyes.

Outside in the corridor, Sam leaned against the wall opposite of Dean's door and blew out a loud sigh. Bobby stepped up to him, his own cup of coffee clutched in his hand.

"He remembers."

So Bobby had noticed it, too. Sam nodded. "Yeah, he does."

"And knowing Dean, he's not going to let up until he knows exactly what happened."

Sam brought his braced hand up to touch the pendant on his chest, underneath the t-shirt. He knew that. Dean was nothing if stubborn. If he remembered their trip to New Hope and the countdown on his deal that had been running out in a matter of hours, he was asking himself how and why he was still alive. Telling Dean about that would be difficult enough for Sam, with all his emotions still boiling too close to the surface.

But there was that other matter of Ruby's plans for Dean. That revelation was still lying like a leaden weight in Sam's stomach, and he had no idea what consequences it would have for them in the future. Sam himself didn't know yet what to make of it, other than that he was going to stop it from happening. He was going to stop Ruby from using Dean as a pawn in her sick plan.

But until he knew what exactly what that meant, until he knew what changes hell had caused in his brother that Ruby wanted to exploit, he wasn't going to tell Dean about it. His brother was bound to be confused enough by everything else that had happened, Sam wasn't going to throw some fragments of Ruby's plan his way that were only going to confuse him further. No, Sam was going to figure it all out for himself first. And only then was he going to tell Dean about it.

Once his brother was settled again. Once Dean was himself again.

Once Sam was sure that Dean was himself again.

Now only one question remained, and that was whether Bobby had heard any of Ruby's last words before she had left. Sam knew that the older hunter had been struggling back to consciousness as the demon had revealed her plans for Dean, but had he heard her words? Sam tried to read the answer to that question from Bobby's face, but the gruff expression was unreadable.

Sam took a deep sip from his coffee, nearly cold by now, and with a disgusted face swallowed the brew and threw the half-full cup into a nearby trashcan. The ten minutes were nowhere near long enough to prepare himself for the conversation he was about to have. Before Sam knew it, the door to Dean's room opened again and Dr. Banks and the nurse stepped out again. The nurse was holding two labeled tubes of blood in her hand an immediately hurried off towards the far end of the corridor. Banks stopped a few feet away from Sam.

"You can go back in now if you want. Your brother seems a little agitated."

Sam held back a laugh. Dean would. Agitated was an automated response in his big brother if Dean realized that others knew more about a situation than he did. It only got really dangerous once agitated turned into pissed off. That's when treading around Dean turned into walking around a minefield.

"I'll get back to you when we have the results from the blood tests. Other than that, his condition seems very good considering the extend of his injuries. Just watch out that he doesn't over-exert himself. He needs to take it slow, unless he wants to pull his stitches."

Sam nodded. "Sure. Thanks."  
Banks nodded, smiled at Sam and then followed the nurse down the corridor. Sam cast a glance at Bobby, who nodded at him, then he drew a deep breath and opened the door to Dean's room again.

Dean was still sitting in the bed, in the same position he had been earlier, with the headboard raised slightly but not into a full sitting position. But his whole demeanor was different than it had been earlier.

Dean was tense. He was radiating anger, and had it not been for the stitches pulling at the skin on his chest, Sam was sure that he'd have crossed his arms over his chest to underline his determination. His face was set and the expression in his green eyes was clouded and dark – never a good sign. Dean's eyes immediately latched onto Sam as he entered the room and followed even the smallest of Sam's movements.

Sam had to admit that he was a bit taken aback. For as long as he remembered, Sam had always been the one who had been compared to his father in both looks and temper. But right now, with that grim and determined expression on his face, it didn't much matter that Dean had inherited most of his looks from his mother. At that moment Dean looked far more like John Winchester than Sam had ever noticed before.

And without a single word spoken Sam knew that there was only one thing Dean would accept to fill the silence in the room, and that wasn't any talk about what Dr. Banks had said, or about how Dean was feeling. Dean wanted answers, and he wanted them right now. There was no room for compromise.

Sam stepped up to the chair that was still standing beside Dean's bed, a bit unnerved by his brother's eyes following his every move. He hesitated before sitting down, however. With the dark glower in Dean's eyes, Sam would have preferred to keep standing to at least have the difference in height working to his advantage. But Dean would have none of it.

"Sit."

Even the clipped tones were a carbon copy of John Winchester when he was on a quest for the truth, expecting straight answers without any bullshitting. And Sam found his body responding automatically as he sat down. Dean kept looking at him, breaking the gaze only long enough to make sure that Bobby, too, had pulled up a chair and sat down.

"And now talk."

Three syllables, but they contained all the authority that Dean had always held over Sam. Unlike their father, this was an authority Dean didn't just claim for himself, but one he had earned over the years of raising Sam. Dean often played the big brother card when he was trying to overrule Sam on something, but that was different. That was a playful "big brother knows best" kind of thing, but this here spoke a different tune. It was just three words, but three words that spoke volumes. They said "My whole life I busted my ass raising you, keeping you safe, taking care of you and keeping the bad things away from you. That earned me the right for some answers."

It left no room for argument, and Sam had absolutely no defenses against that particular tone in his brother's voice. So there was only one thing left to do.

He drew a deep breath and started talking.

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Thanks for reading. And as always, I'd appreciate it if you left me a review and let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	20. Family Business

And we're nearing the end on this story. For those of you who are wondering how that is possible, there are author's notes at the end of this chapter that will explain it. But I guess reading the chapter as such won't hurt in finding out, either. So without further ado, here it is.

Enjoy!

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**Chapter 18 – Family Business**

Sam told Dean everything that had happened since their drive to New Hope. Well, nearly everything. He left out how he had clung to Dean's body for the entire drive back to Bobby's, in fact he left out all the sissy chick-flick moments, and he kept the details about his post mortem stitching job to a minimum. The breakdown at his dead brother's bedside went unmentioned as well, and it was Bobby who picked up telling the tale once Sam reached the part where he had lost consciousness after the demon had cut him open in that motel room.

That was also the one time when Dean interrupted their account of what had happened. As soon as he heard that Sam had been injured, his priorities shifted. Suddenly, getting to know what had happened to bring him back to life lost all importance. And in typical Dean Winchester pit-bull fashion he wasn't willing to let go until he knew what had happened to his brother and how badly he had been hurt. Sam already regretted that he had told Dean about the injury in the first place.

What followed was an embarrassing minute or two of discussion between the two brothers that wasn't really a discussion at all. It was Sam trying to argue against his brother when Dean had already set his mind to something. In effect, it was Sam using up precious air in his attempts to convince Dean that he was all right. And there was only one way it could end – with Sam eventually relenting. Though he felt stupid, he pulled up his shirt for his brother to inspect the wound on his chest. The only thing Sam was glad for was that Ruby's Wiccan remedy had really been working wonders and the wound no longer looked only half as bad as it had done the previous day. The goo covering his wound didn't smell as bad anymore, either, which Sam was eternally grateful for.

Sam felt like an object at an auction as his brother critically eyed the injury for an endless minute, his eyes narrowed and his lips drawn into a thin line. Sam knew that expression on his brother's face, and he didn't like seeing it there. It was that gut-wrenching mixture of unleashed anger at whoever had dared to hurt his brother, and a large portion of guilt for not being there to prevent Sam from getting hurt in the first place.

It was the exact expression that made Sam want to yell on top of his lungs that not everything that happened to him was Dean's fault, that sometimes bad things simply happened beyond anybody's ability to prevent them. But then Bobby continued talking, and Sam took that as his cue to lower his shirt again and hope against better knowledge that his brother would forget about the wound on his chest.

It was Sam who finished telling the story. He told Dean what had happened at Bobby's house, everything including Ruby's betrayal and how she had killed Lilith. There was only one part of the events that Sam deliberately left out of the story. True to his promise to himself Sam didn't mention anything Ruby had said about her plans for Dean. He told all about her idea of bringing on the final war between humans and demons, the war that would bring back Lucifer, but he left out that Ruby thought Dean was going to help her fight that war. The fact that Bobby didn't protest, didn't even as much as look at Sam when he left out that particular moment of his conversation with the demon let Sam's hope grow that the older hunter maybe really hadn't heard any of what Ruby had said. It would make keeping it a secret from Dean for at least a little while longer a bit easier.

When Sam was done telling, he felt tired and exhausted. This hadn't been tale worthy of the half a cup of cold coffee he was currently running on, it had been a tale that shouldn't be told without at least a six-pack slowly being absorbed into his metabolism. As it was, he had to make do with being sober, but once he finished talking and silence filled the hospital room once again, Sam suddenly found it hard to look to look up at his brother.

Bobby shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but he didn't seem inclined to say anything to break the oppressing silence, either. But what worried Sam even more was Dean's silence. He would have expected his brother to scream and rage at the fact that Sam had worked with Ruby for a while, he had expected _I told you so's_ as a reaction to Ruby's betrayal. Anything really, because Dean wasn't one to hold back with his opinion on something. Yet here Sam had just told him that he had died, gone to hell, and only been able to come back because their souls were bound to each other, and Dean was meeting all those revelations with silence.

When Sam finally dared to look up, Dean was staring straight ahead. He wasn't looking at Sam or at Bobby, but had his eyes turned on the pendant around Sam's neck which Sam had pulled out from underneath his t-shirt at an earlier point. Dean had worn that pendant for years, but right now he was looking at it as if it was the first time in his life he had laid eyes on it.

Sam couldn't really read the expression on his brother's face. It was obvious that Dean was thinking about what he had just heard, but he couldn't tell if Dean was angry, surprised, confused, anything. He couldn't read a single emotion on his brother's face.

Dean had put up an impenetrable mask like he always did when he didn't really know what to make of something himself. Sam knew that there was a lot going on beneath that surface, but no matter how hard he tried he had never been able to find a mechanism to break through that mask. Sam still depended on Dean lowering it and allowing Sam to see what was going on inside of him, and those occurrences remained rare, no matter how much closer they had become over the past years.

"Dean?"

With a second's delay, Dean looked up and met his brother's eyes.

"Do me a favor and check in with that doctor, will you Sam? I really want to get out of here."

Sam drew breath to say something, but he knew that it would be just a waste of breath. Dean didn't want to talk about it. And there was no way to make Dean talk about something he didn't want to talk about.

"Okay."

Sam got up from his chair and turned towards the door. He kept his steps deliberately slow, but Dean didn't call him back. There's be no talking about anything Sam had just told his brother, not until Dean had made his mind up about it. No bargaining on that one.

But despite Dean's urge to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible, it was not in his hands to decide. Even once Sam located Banks, that didn't get them closer to having Dean released. Banks was adamant about waiting for the lab results before Dean could leave, and while his brother could theoretically discharge himself even before that, it was one point Sam agreed with. Dean's blood results had been strange the previous night. And that meant that they were going to wait out those new results to make sure that everything was all right.

Dean wasn't excited about the idea, to say the least. But it was one thing Sam was not ready to bargain on, so Dean had no chance but to sit it out. And he did – silently. The tension was rising to the point when it became tangible, and both Sam and Bobby were clever enough not to try and engage Dean in a distracting conversation. No need to provoke an outbreak right in the middle of a crowded hospital.

It was early afternoon when the results of Dean's blood work finally came in and he was cleared for discharge. It was obvious that Dr. Banks still had his reservations about letting Dean go, but he too seemed to sense the tension in the room and decided not to argue his case any more than necessary. He suggested Dean stay another night, Dean brushed him off before the man had even finished his sentence, and that was that.

Dean was cleared to leave the hospital.

Before Sam knew what was happening, they were sitting in the Impala again – Bobby driving, Dean on the passenger seat and Sam sitting in the backseat – which was free of any blood stains, though the leather looked somewhat lighter in the spots where Bobby had scrubbed at it.

Sam was watching his brother closely for the entire drive, but all he could see were Dean's shoulders and the back of his brother's head as Dean stared out the window at the city outside. The silence was oppressing, and once or twice Sam was tempted to say something. But every time he drew breath to speak, he saw the subtle tensing of his brother's shoulders and thought better of it.

Dean didn't want to talk.

So all that remained for Sam was to wait until his brother started talking, no matter how frustrating it was. Sam needed to talk about it. He wanted to talk about everything that had happened. In all honesty he simply wanted to hear his brother talk. He had gone too long without hearing his brother's voice, with the prospect of never hearing his brother's voice again, right now he'd even settle for Dean singing along with the radio, or talking about one of his romantic exploits of the past. Anything just to hear Dean's voice.

But Dean remained silent for the entire drive, brooding while staring out of the window. And even as they pulled the car up in front of Bobby's house he got out wordlessly and went inside. Sam climbed out of the backseat and stared after his brother's retreating form, a sigh of epic proportions escaping his lips. Bobby walked around the car and stopped beside Sam.

"He doesn't want to talk about it."

Bobby harrumphed. "And knowing Dean, that surprises you?" He shook his head. "Go on in. I still have stuff to take care of out here. You know your way around, shout if you need anything."

Sam knew what Bobby was doing, and he knew that Bobby was just as worried about Dean's brooding silence as Sam was. Bobby was hoping that Dean would be more inclined to talk if he left the two brothers alone for a while. Sam doubted that it was that easy, though. Nothing with Dean was ever easy. But Dean was always worth the trouble of giving it a shot.

"Okay."

Bobby gave Sam a pat on the shoulder and rounded the house towards the back. Sam took a deep breath and followed his brother into Bobby's house.

It didn't take long for Sam to find Dean. His brother was in the spare bedroom upstairs. Not surprising, considering that this was the room they always stayed in when they were at Bobby's. Bobby had cleaned up here too, the salt and the Devil's Trap had been wiped away, but still merely entering the room gave Sam the creeps. Remembering the hours with Dean's dead body in here made Sam want to hurry over to his brother and cling to him, touch him just to assure himself that all this was over now like the nightmare it had been. It took more than just one deep breath to calm himself and chase away those thoughts.

One of their duffle bags was standing on one of the beds in the room, the bed that Sam had deposited Dean's dead body on a lifetime ago, and Dean was busy rifling through it. Sam took a step into the room, not bothering to make his presence known. It was hard to sneak up on Dean, even for Sam. He knew that his brother had noticed him the moment he had stepped into the doorframe.

"Most of our stuff is still downstairs. I'm guessing that Bobby threw most clothes into the washer."

Dean looked up from inspecting the weapons he had pulled from the duffle, a frown on his face. "Bobby's doing our laundry? That's scary."

Sam shrugged. "Gift horse and all that. It could be worse."

Sam sat down on the second bed and watched how his brother cleared the remaining weapons out of the duffle bag and checked them to see if they were loaded, had been shot recently or needed cleaning. It was their Dad's marine training, checking the arsenal and making sure that it was in working order always a priority to talking about whatever it was that had happened. It was a well-known routine, and to the soldier in Dean it was probably a soothing and somewhat therapeutic process. Once Dean had lined up the weapons on the bed, he looked up at Sam.

"There's a bunch of guns missing."

"They're in the trunk."

Dean nodded and looked down at the small arsenal on the bed, but soon his gaze became distant again as his thoughts wandered somewhere else. Sam watched his brother silently, waiting for Dean to get his thoughts in order. Finally, Dean straightened up and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh.

"So this pendant…"

Obviously, Dean had mentally gone through all the revelations of the past hours and had figured out what he wanted to talk about. Sam found his hand automatically close around the pendant that rested against his chest.

"What about it?"

Dean stepped away from the bed and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed loosely in front of his chest.

"So what you're saying is that it's that thing that stopped me from going to hell?"

Sam shook his head. "Not stopped you. Brought you back. And yes, that's what Ruby said."

Dean pulled a face, but didn't let the thought of the demon deter him from whatever mental path he was walking on. After a moment, he loosened his arms with a slightly pained grimace and shrugged.

"So if this thing is strong enough to save a soul from hell…"

Dean's sentence trailed off into silence and Sam looked up at his brother with a frown.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. It's just…you didn't want to give it to me initially. Remember? And I can't help thinking that if you had given it to Dad instead of me, he might still be alive."

Anger flared up inside of Sam at those words, white hot fury suddenly blinding all reason as he realized that not even dying and coming back to life had changed Dean's screwed up perception of his own worth. Without thought he jumped up from his perch on the second bed and crossed the distance towards his brother in a few large strides. Dean's eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed in pain as Sam non too gently pushed him up against the wall.

"Don't!"

"Don't what? It's true, Sam. That pendant was a present for Dad. If you hadn't wasted it on me, it would have been able to save Dad's soul after he made that deal with the yellow eyed demon."

Red was blurring the edge of Sam's vision, and it took every bit of restraint he had not to try and beat some sense into his brother. Dean was injured. And Dean couldn't help it. It was not Dean's fault that he thought that way. It was what their father had ingrained in Dean from early childhood on, ingrained so deeply that Dean could never quite shake it off.

But that didn't mean Sam would ever stop trying.

"You will listen to me now Dean, and listen good. I don't ever want to hear you say that again."

Dean roughly pushed Sam's hands away, creating a little distance between himself and his brother.

"But it's the truth, isn't it?"

"No!" Why couldn't Dean see it? "The truth is that giving this pendant to you was the right thing to do, the only right thing. The truth is that even though I didn't know how powerful that pendant truly was, the moment I decided to give it to you I _wanted_ you to have it. I wanted you to have the protection I thought it gave. _You_, not Dad. The truth is that I think I was meant to give you that pendant, and it's the truth that even if I had given it to Dad it wouldn't have worked!"

Dean shook his head. "Why wouldn't it? You said it yourself earlier, that pendant bound my soul to you. Now if you had given it to Dad, it would have saved him from hell after he made his deal, it could have brought him back to life like it did me! And if he had been around, you probably wouldn't have died and I'd have never had to close that deal with the crossroad demon. We'd all be alive!"

Sam shook his head as he was trying to keep up with his brother's logic. "So what, I wouldn't have died if Dad had been around? Dean, I was alone in Cold Oak, whether or not Dad was still alive wouldn't have stopped Jake from stabbing me either way."

"Dad wouldn't have let it come this far, Sam. He'd have protected you."

Once more Sam had to resist the urge to smack his brother. Was Dean really blaming himself for the fact that Sam had been taken by Yellow Eye? There had been nothing his brother could have done, and also nothing that their father could have done to stop it. Hell, John Winchester had known about Sam's connection to the demon for over twenty years without spilling a single word about it, Sam doubted that he'd have said anything if he had lived on. And Sam was sure that there was nothing their father could have done to save Sam from what had happened. For all his life, Dean had always done a much better job at protecting Sam than their father had.

"Why do you keep insisting that everything would have been so much better if Dad was still around? You think it's your job to protect me from everything because he drilled that lesson into you since you were old enough to remember, but I'm a grown man now, Dean! It's my own responsibility to watch out for myself, I can't load that onto anyone else. I don't _want_ to load it onto anyone else, least of all you! I gave that pendant to you all those years ago because I wanted you to have it. Because you were around, because you cared about me and Dad didn't! And even if I had given the pendant to Dad it wouldn't have worked the same way! It wouldn't have worked for him!"

Dean shook his head angrily. "You keep saying that, but you don't explain why!"

Sam sighed and pushed his hair out of his eyes with his uninjured hand. "I told you in the hospital, that's not how that pendant works."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because you know so much about how these things worked. Because _Ruby_ told you."

"Yes, Ruby told me. And I know that you were right and it was a mistake to trust her, and that I can't take anything she says at face value, but so far I have no reason to believe that she was lying about the soul catcher. And she said that those things don't simply work by handing them over. They only work if there's an intent behind giving them. That thing only saved your soul because I _wanted_ for it to be something to protect you. I _wanted_ for it to keep you safe, and it only worked because over the years after I gave you the pendant those feelings didn't change. It worked because there was a bond between us for the soul catcher to draw upon."

"So what, it all comes back to some wussy girl crap? To the fact that you and Dad batted heads ever since you hit puberty and we didn't?"

"No Dean, it comes back to the fact that I loved Dad, despite all the fighting and yelling. I loved the man fiercely but I just…"

The words choked in Sam's throat. Dean just shook his head again.

"You just _what_?"

Yes, Sam wondered that himself. He just _what_?

He had loved his father, but he simply hadn't loved him enough. It hurt to even think such a thought, but it was the truth. Sam hadn't loved his father enough. Not enough to carry the weight of his soul when he himself no longer could. Not as much as he loved Dean. Not the same way he loved his brother.

Sam shook his head.

"It just wouldn't have worked, Dean. Can't you just accept that? Dad and me, that's always been different than you and me, and that's that. So for once in your life, can you simply accept that something good happened to you and not think about who possibly might have deserved it more than you? Is that too much to ask?"

Sam felt himself deflate. He didn't want to argue with his brother, not after everything they had been through. And he also didn't want for his own mask to slip right now. If there was one thing his brother had never been able to deal with, it were emotions – his own just as much as others'. But Dean's eyes suddenly turned distant and with a sigh he looked down on the ground, studying the ugly pattern of the small throw rug he was standing on.

"But what if it isn't a good thing?"

"What do you mean?"

Dean shrugged awkwardly. "You said it yourself. I went to hell. Who knows what that did to me. People aren't supposed to go to hell and come back. So what makes you say it's a good thing?"

"You're back, Dean. That's a good thing in my book."

Dean shook his head again. "That's not what I mean, Sam. What if it changed me? What if I'm not the same anymore?"

Sam sat down on the bed and rubbed his hands over his face. He had no idea how to answer that question. He was too afraid of the answer himself.

"What do you remember?"

That was what Sam had been curious about ever since the first adrenaline rush of having his brother back had ebbed away a little. Dean walked over to the bed facing the one Sam was sitting on and sat down, too. His face pulled into another pained frown as the movement pulled on the stitches in his left leg. He stared down at his hands for a few seconds, then he shrugged.

"Nothing, really."

"What do you mean?"

Dean looked up and met his brother's eyes. "I mean that I don't remember anything."

Sam couldn't believe his ears. It just couldn't be true that Dean didn't remember anything about his stint in hell. Surely whatever had happened there must have been horrible enough to leave an impression on him.

"It's…the last thing I remember clearly is being at Bobby's. After that it's flashes. Just disjointed pictures. I mean, I get the gist of what happened, but I can't put it all together in the right order. Did I really kill a cop?"

"It was a demon."

"Oh." Dean nodded as if something suddenly made sense. "Good. I remember that. And that little girl. And Ruby. But then…the next thing I really remember is waking up in the hospital to see you crying like you had just watched _Titanic_ again."

"If I remember correctly, you were going all teary when we caught that rerun on TV as well."

Dean waved him off. "That was from all that yawning. I mean come on, that movie lasted for over three hours. For what? I might not always have paid attention in history class, but even I knew that trawler was going to sink in the end. Kinda downgraded the movie in the suspense department, I can tell you that. So any tears you might have imagined seeing were caused by boredom and the lack of hot chicks, nothing else."

Sam just shook his head. He had had this discussion with his brother once before, after a particularly vicious rainstorm had kept them inside their motel room and the room's only TV channel had been the one showing a rerun of _Titanic_. The choice had been to either watch it or go to sleep, and it hadn't taken the entire length of the movie for Sam to realize that they had made the wrong choice. Watching a chick flick with his brother definitely wasn't something Sam ever wanted to repeat. It was just too pitiful to see Dean's denial.

So Sam silently shook his head and brought their conversation back on topic.

"We'll just have to do what we always do."

Dean looked up at his brother.

"And what's that?"

Sam shrugged. "We figure out what's going on."

Dean smiled briefly, but the mask quickly slipped back on his face. "We have to. We need to find out what happened to me while I was down there. We can't risk that it did something to me that's putting you in danger."

Sam bit his lip and said nothing. His own reason for wanting to find out what had happened to Dean in hell was concern for his brother, not for himself. But that was just the story of their lives.

"We have to find out what happened to you to make sure that it's not putting you in danger, Dean." He shook his head and continued before Dean had a chance to argue that point.

"We need to find out what happened because I'm fed up with being behind on information all the time. We need to stop Ruby, now more than ever."

Dean nodded, but after a moment a frown settled on his face.

"That's something I still don't get."

Sam's pulse sped up. "What do you mean?"

"Ruby. I mean I get it that she wants to become the grand Pooh-Bah downstairs. They seemingly all do. Lilith thought that putting my soul in hell and killing you would make her the great master of all demons. Right, I get that. And Ruby wants that position for herself, so the back-stabbing bitch makes demon shish kebab out of her. Up until that point I get it."

Sam shrugged uncomfortably. He didn't like the direction that this conversation was going in.

"I think that's about all there is to understand. Ruby wants the same that Lilith wanted."

Dean shook his head.

"Yeah, but then why did she let you live? And why help me get out of hell? That doesn't make any sense. If she wanted the same thing Lilith wanted, why not go through with Lilith's plan? What is her angle in all this?"

Sam had never been good at lying to Dean. His big brother had always been able to see through Sam without any effort at all. And Sam didn't like lying to his brother. But this wasn't a little white lie to cover up that he had taken the Impala without asking. This was a lie Sam considered necessary. If he told Dean about Ruby's plans now, his brother was going to brood about it without end. And he'd end up concluding that it had bee a mistake to bring him back, that he was a threat to Sam, and Sam couldn't have that. He couldn't have something like that shadowing the euphoria of having his brother back. He would tell Dean when the time was right. When he knew more about it all.

So this time, for the first time in Sam's life, he put everything he had into a lie.

"I have no idea."

His heart was pounding double time in his chest, but Dean seemed lost in his own thoughts about what Ruby could possibly be up to. He nodded at Sam's words, and they seemed to register, but he didn't question them. Sam breathed a silent sigh of relief.

"Then we'll have to find out." Dean finally concluded as he looked up from his contemplation of the carpet. "We'll do what we do best – we'll hunt that bitch down and make her tell us. And we stop her."

Sam forced a smile. Dean had no idea how much Sam agreed to his words. They were going to stop Ruby, and if it was the last thing he did.

"Yeah. But in the meantime, we should get some food."

A smile spread over Dean's face, the first real and true smile Sam had seen since his brother had woken up in the hospital. If he had needed any additional motivation to get to the bottom of this, that smile would have done it. Sam drew a deep breath and got up from the bed. In passing, he clasped his brother's shoulder for a moment and squeezed.

"Then let's go downstairs and see if Bobby has anything edible in the house."

Dean laughed and got up as well. "Yeah right. We'll just give him a whisk and he'll whip up a three course menu for us. And if you write to Santa, I'm sure he'll bring you that pony you've wanted ever since you were five years old. Stop dreaming, Sammy."

Sam shook his head and turned back towards his brother.

"Jerk."

The smile on Dean's face widened. "Bitch."

As they went downstairs, Sam thought that all things considered, they were doing good. Dean was back with him, that was the main thing. Everything else they were going to work out.

Downstairs, they found Bobby refreshing the salt lines on one of the living room windows. He turned around when he heard their steps on the stairs.

"Ah, there you are. I was just about to go upstairs and get you."

"Hopefully to tell us that there's food on the table."

Bobby looked at Dean with a frown. "Well, I guess I could drive into town and get us some burgers."

"Great. Just let me get my jacket and we can be off."

Bobby shook his head. "No, let me handle the food. You can get started here."

Now it was Dean's turn to frown, and as his brother looked at him with a questioning gaze Sam could only shrug. He had no idea either what Bobby was talking about.

"Started with what?"

Bobby jutted his head into the direction of the stacks and towers of books that lined the living room on all sides.

"Research."

"Research?"

"There an echo around here Dean? Yes, research. You know, the part of hunting where you read books and try to figure out what you're dealing with?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "I know what research is, and I have opened a book before. I'm just curious what kind of research is so important now that it beats going out for dinner."

Bobby only shrugged. "I figured we should get started as quickly as possible. We need to understand what happened to you in hell."

Sam couldn't help but flinch at Bobby's blunt words. Leave it to the older hunter not to beat about the bush. But neither Bobby nor Dean seemed to notice.

"Besides, if Ruby is truly as keen about starting a war against humanity as she seems to be, we need to be prepared. Knowledge is power, boys, and there's a hell of a lot of knowledge on demons in this room alone that's only waiting to be gathered. So I'll grab some food and you get started here."

Bobby put on his cap and shrugged into his jacket. Keys in hand, he turned back towards Sam and Dean who still hadn't moved from their positions.

"What are you waiting for, an invitation? We got work to do."

* * *

_**The End.**_

* * *

Yes, it is the end of this tale. Thanks to all of you for sticking around with me through my first multi-chaptered Supernatural fic. So everyone who read, reviewed, put me on story or author alert, thanks to you all. Knowing that I had people reading and enjoying this is what made me finish it and what made writing it so enjoyable. Once more thanks go out to Isis-SG1 for patiently listening to my storyline rants, encouraging me when she thought I had a good idea, and proof-reading nearly all of the chapters.

This started out from the idea that if the show was going to kill off Dean, then I simply had to bring him back. That was the intention of the story. But while writing it, the storyline grew quite a bit away from that initial goal. In fact, a storyline idea developed from it that I think deserves to be told in a separate tale.

So while this is the end of this story - Dean is back, Sam can start healing and they can figure out where to go from here, the story is far from over. Ruby is still out there, and she still has plans for Dean. Plans for, in her own words, "great, horrible, beautiful things". And that, my dear readers, is the story the sequel is going to tell. So while this story wraps up most things that need to be known to understand that Dean is back, don't worry if you think you are still missing an explanation. It's likely bound to come up in the next story because frankly, Sam and Dean really have hardly any clue as to what exactly happened and how it happened, either.

Thanks again for reading this, and as always, please let me know what you think. Thank you.


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